“Politics has been killed in Russia,” she said. Ms. Khakamada stressed that Vladimir Putin’s administration was using the same methods in its political fight as the previous administration. “The administrations of Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin are twin brothers, despite the current administration’s efforts to distance itself from its predecessors,” Ms. Khakamada said.

In her opinion, the lack of the middle class involvement in the process of reforms was among the main mistakes of Mr. Yeltsin’s administration, as well as its reliance on the support of oligarchs in its struggle with Communists and the appointment of a political successor by Boris Yeltsin, instead of “giving an opportunity to compete honestly in presidential elections”.

Ms. Khakamada said she was not going to pull out of the elections. According to her, there are only two legitimate candidates in the election campaign. Quoting opinion polls, she said: “If Vladimir Putin withdrew from the elections, I would become the leader.” However, Ms. Khakamada noted that she did not hope to get a high vote as “not only the Kremlin but also democrats are working against me”.

After the election campaign, Ms. Khakamada is going to focus on building a real democratic opposition movement. In her view, it does not matter who will eventually become the leader of this movement, but democrats need to come to their senses, drop their ambitions and correct their mistakes. After that, a real democratic leader will emerge in Russia.

On February 24, Ms. Khakamada said she might withdraw from the presidential elections. According to election laws, any candidate can do so before March 8 without any explanations.

Ms. Khakamada is also concerned about Russia’s tax system. In her opinion, it is because of a flawed tax system that Russia’s economic growth is generated solely by raw material exports. She considers it necessary to cancel the value added tax and the profit tax, and to introduce a single turnover tax of 6-8 percent. The employer payroll tax should be reduced to 10-11 percent. Small businesses should be exempt from taxes for three years, and raw material producers should pay mineral royalties.

She suggests introducing a progressive taxation system whereby taxes for the poorest and middle class citizens would be no more than 13 percent, and for more well-off people – 25-30 percent”.

In addition, Ms. Khakamada said it was necessary to replace the current Chechen administration headed by Akhmad Kadyrov. She described Mr. Kadyrov’s administration as a “bomb”. “For some time, it will work for Vladimir Putin, grabbing control of Chechnya’s oil and other resources”, after which it will come out against the federal government, Ms. Khakamada believes. She recalled that Mr. Kadyrov himself used to be a rebel fighter.

According to her, Chechnya needs a parliamentarian structure that can only be built with the help of foreign mediators.