Posner said he was astounded to see that the party congress, which drew 670 delegates from Russia’s regions, elected Medvedev as its leader on May 26 without a single dissenting vote.

“In fact, it strongly brought to mind, at least for me, the Communist Party congress that was held during stagnation,” said the host.

He also noted that while voting was secret during Communist Party congresses, “here there wasn’t even that.”

“And not a single vote against him; not one person abstained. You understand that this doesn’t actually happen, right? That whenever there’s a gathering of several hundred people, or even a hundred, one person without fail will be against; one person without fail will abstain,” said Posner.

He asked Medvedev to appear on his show to provide an account of why the voting happened as it did.

“Tell me, Dmitri Anatolevich – you’re the representative of the party; perhaps you could come on my program and explain this to me and to others? It would be terribly interesting and, of course, helpful. It would be fantastic,” he said.

Posner made waves in February when he publically threatened to cancel his show if it continued to be subjected to state censorship.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday, Poser said that he would not tolerate further censorship of his program. The most recent instance occurred when management at Channel One decided to nix a part of a February 6 interview that discussed Alexei Navalny – a leading opposition figure and one of the organizers of a massive opposition protest over the weekend.

“It might be that at the end of the day it’s not as a result of [the incident concerning] Navalny, but if anything else like this happens, I might just tell them – that’s enough!” Posner said.

At the same time, the host expressed hope that it wouldn’t come to such an extreme measure.

He also promised that if the show is cancelled, a press conference would be held to explain the specific reasons why.

“I’m very glad that, thanks to the Internet, anyone who’s interested can see: here is the program and here is what they cut out of it. It’s becoming meaningless to cut things out,” Posner said.

The host admitted that February 6 was not the first time he’d agreed to air a censored episode. While it happens “relatively rarely, this is one of the compromises that I sometimes make,” he acknowledged.

The interview in question was with fellow television host Tina Kandelaki, during which Posner asked whether or not she thought that he would be allowed to interview Aleksei Navalny on his own show: “I could call up Aleksei Navalny, but what do you think, would they let me?” According to Gazeta.ru, this fragment was cut out of the episode that aired in most of Russia, with the full version only broadcasted in the Far East, where it is regularly airs live.

In an interview on February 24, Posner spoke to GZT.ru about his plans to invite oppositionists who are effectively banned from appearing on state-controlled television onto his show. The first, he said, would be Solidarity co-leader Boris Nemtsov, whom he planned to invite sometime in March.

“I plan to invite Boris Nemtsov. I’m definitely going to refer to the conversation with Putin that took place in the presence of [Channel One General Director] Konstantin Ernst and another 25 people from the channel,” Posner said at the time.

But on April 1, which happened to be Posner’s 77th birthday in addition to the end of March, Nemtsov wrote in a birthday greeting to the host that neither he nor fellow opposition leader Garry Kasparov had received an invitation to appear on the show:

“There’s a man named Vladimir Vladimirovich, whom it’s a pleasure to address. That man is you. When I was very young, I saw you for the first time on the Russia-America teleconference, where you- spoke with Phil Donahue and the American public in an absolutely professional, open and candid manner. It was striking, unusual and became etched into my memory. It was my first lesson in openness and glasnost. Many thanks to you for that. To be an independent journalist working on federal television – in our times, few people have the strength for that. Sometimes this miracle works out well for you. May god grant you good health and a long life, and Garry Kasparov and I will continue to wait for your call. I shake your hand.”

Posner himself was unavailable for comment.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin first announced that oppositionists may be allowed on state television during a meeting with the Channel One creative team on February 3. The next day Posner said he had asked the station’s management for permission to invite oppositionists onto the air, and a few weeks later announced his intentions to invite Nemtsov sometime in March. Garry Kasparov has expressed skepticism that the invitations would ever come.

“I plan to invite Boris Nemtsov. I’m definitely going to refer to the conversation with Putin that took place in the presence of [Channel One General Director] Konstantin Ernst and another 25 people from the channel,” Posner told the publication.

“As of now, I can’t say I’ve been told ‘no’ in regards to my wish to have oppositionists on the air,” he went on. “Inviting Boris Efimovich in February didn’t work out. I had already planned to have other people on. Why am I starting with Nemtsov? I see him as the most interesting and striking person from the opposition.”

Speaking to Kasparov.ru, Nemtsov said he has not yet received an invitation to appear on Posner’s show, which is simply called “Posner.”

“As of now, I haven’t received an invitation, but I’ll go to the interview; why not?” said Nemtsov. “It’s a live broadcast, otherwise I simply wouldn’t agree; another matter is that the live broadcast is shown in the east of the country and it’s possible that they could cut something out afterwards, having consulted with the Kremlin. It’s hard to control, but in this case it would be Posner’s reputation that would suffer, and not mine.”

Nemtsov said he expects the piece to be a fluff interview that would avoid any controversial topics. “I think the questions are going to be posed in such a way as to follow the general outline of the channel,” he said. “They’ll be about my health; my children.”

Posner said he also sees Eduard Limonov, leader of the Other Russia and National Bolshevik Parties, as another striking opposition figure – but does not plan to have him on his show.

“Limonov… it’s unlikely that I’d invite him, because I promised myself not to invite fascists,” Posner explained. “As long as he has the party banner that he has, he’s not going to be on my program.”

“I know what fascism is and what Nazism is. And when I see a person whose flag is a copy of the Nazi flag but has a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika in the middle – for me this is a definite, as they say nowadays, message. And I told myself: I’m never going to give these people speak,” the television host concluded.

Such sentiments represent both state censorship over television and Posner’s personal enmity, Limonov told Kasparov.ru.

“I think that there’s both censorship and enmity, even though Posner doesn’t know me. He called me a fascist, and that’s slander in general, which is disproved by my close cooperation with Garry Kasparov and many other honest people,” the oppositionist said. “The party that I head is the most repressed party; about two hundred of its members have gone through prisons and camps – in the past two years, 35 people have been convicted on the 282th article [banning extremism – ed.] alone.”

Kasparov.ru noted that Posner claims he has been threatened by members of the National Bolshevik Party. Limonov denied the accusations.

Posner also said he would like to host an interview with incisive liberal commentator and politician Valeriya Novodvorskaya.

“I would invite Novodvorskaya,” he said. “She, of course, is a frightfully brave person. She is a wonderful writer and has a wonderful sense of humor. But at the same time, she is totally radical. It seems to me that it’s very difficult to agree with her on anything. That is to say, everything is black and white to her, either/or; she doesn’t allow for any shades of gray. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t invite her on. It’s just that I understand how it could be difficult.”

It is also possible that leading Russian oppositionist Garry Kasparov could be invited on Posner’s show – he was among the original figures Posner referenced at the beginning of February – although GZT.ru pointed out that he hasn’t yet been invited. Kasparov himself expressed skepticism of the entire affair and discontent with the host’s objections to Limonov and other controversial oppositionists.

“It’s pointless to comment on Posner’s routine, seasonal promises,” Kasparov responded. “This isn’t the first time we’re hearing them. If I get an invitation, then I’ll go. It’s interesting that ‘squeamish’ Posner doesn’t want to see Limonov on his show. On the other hand, he’s expanding his list with Novodvorskaya, ‘the boogieman of Russian liberalism.’ But has he heard of the names of [liberal blogger Alexei] Navalny or [Left Front leader] Udaltsov? Or does he not watch anything other than Channel One?”

Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky sees Posner’s promise to invite oppositionists on his show as a manifestation of “Perestroika 2” – a continuation of processes that began in 2010, when it became unfashionable for members of the more glamorous portions of Russian society to be associated with the government.

“This is a mature stage of protest, in which people who have spoken out against Khodorkovsky are beginning to speak out in favor of him or redact their objections,” the analyst explained. “Perestroika begins not when dissidents come out against the system, but when people who were recently loyal to the government come over to its moral and political opposition, like the Komsomol workers did in the ’80s.”

Acclaimed television host Leonid Parfyonov recently gave a highly critical speech of Russian media censorship at an awards ceremony back in November.

“Journalistic topics, and with them all of life, was definitively divided into what was allowed on TV and what wasn’t allowed on TV,” he said. “Each politically significant broadcast is used to guess the government’s goals and problems, its mood, attitude, its friends and enemies.”

While the speech was broadcast on national television, parts of it were cut, with the unedited version only available online.

As the main source of news for the majority of Russians, state censorship of television has long prevented opposition members from reaching as wide an audience as the ruling party, United Russia, is able to enjoy. Without that kind of exposure, their ability to convey messages to the public is severely limited.

So it was an interesting twist to hear Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin say he has no problem with oppositionists appearing on television.

In a meeting with Putin on Thursday, Vladimir Posner asked how the prime minister felt about showing oppositionists on Channel One. In response, Putin said he was not against it and was fine with the fact that “oppositionists lie when they’re on the media, in particular on certain radio channels.” As he put it, “somebody has to lie, because somebody wants to hear those lies.”

Posner specified that, when posing this question, he “had in mind such people as Boris Nemtsov or Garry Kasparov, and not Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Gennady Zyuganov.” Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov head the Liberal Democratic and Communist parties, respectively, and while they are technically opposition parties, they generally toe the Kremlin line.

“If Putin publicly answers my question by saying that he is not opposed to the opposition [appearing on television], it gives me the opportunity to tell the management of Channel One, to Konstantin Ernst’s face, that I would like to invite some specific people onto the air,” said Posner. He stressed that he would now be able to “repel any objections,” since he now has the proper “sanctions from the authorities.”

Ideally, doing this would not require spoken or written approval from the highest levels of government in the country, but “that’s not possible in Russia today,” Posner said.

He lamented that Putin’s rise to power has negatively affected his show Vremena.

“It was real, alive; we discussed relevant issues…but when Putin began to introduce, as they call it, the power vertical, it affected a lot, including the mass media. It gradually became harder and harder, first of all, to touch upon certain topics, and secondly, to say certain things, and I’ve ceased to enjoy the program,” said the host.

Speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio on Friday, Posner said he’d like to invite some opposition figures onto his show as soon as possible and that he’s already discussed this with Channel One management.

“I’m going to try right after this Sunday’s broadcast to have one person or another from the opposition come onto the show,” he said.

“Our law on the mass-media is failing substantially,” Posner said. “I insist, that on our television, and not only on television, free speech does not exist.” As an example, Posner explained that during recent Parliamentary and Presidential elections, “there were things that were absolutely forbidden: you can’t talk about him, you can’t show this one, and that one you can’t invite.”

Posner was once one of the Soviet Union’s best known spokesmen, and now hosts Russia’s most popular political news show. He told “60 Minutes” last year that democratic reforms had definitely been rolled back since President Vladimir Putin took office. Commenting on why opposition leader Garry Kasparov never appeared on his show, Posner openly admitted the reason: “Because Channel One will not allow it.”

Eduard Sagalaev, the president of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters, agreed with Posner, adding: “we have very little truth and much banality on television.” “An information policy has formed in Russia, which de facto does not consider free discussion, and which de facto does not consider live programming,” he said.

“And I don’t know what to do here.”

Alternate spelling: Vladimir Pozner