The Rich Are Duty Bound to Fight (10.2003)

Taken from Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s last public statement before his arrest in October 2003 and published in the newspaper Moskovskie Novosti in July 2004.

On Emigration
People often ask me why I don’t just say to hell with it all and leave the country! I’ve thought the question over quite often. I travel abroad a lot. To a great extent I feel quite at ease abroad. And still, I am not at home there. Why, I cannot understand. I care about what is going on in Russia. Of course, I also care about what is going on outside Russia, but not as much.

On ’Justice’
The favorite topic of discussion in our country is whether companies were sold too cheaply or too expensively during privatization and if it was possible to share all those assets honestly.
The answer to the latter question is both yes and no. It was possible because initially, at the time when vouchers were distributed, the property was divided more or less honestly. And yet, it was not possible because to share it honestly people had to understand and realize that shares had value.
There were no such people here 15 years ago, and unfortunately, I think there won’t be many of them in ten, or even twenty years. The main problem is in their heads.
The other question is whether it was cheap or expensive. Today, when Yukos’s value exceeds $30 billion it seems that the $2 billion paid for it at the beginning was too little for such a company.
But then, in mid-98 when the $2 billion that had already been paid for Yukos and when its market value stood at $370 million, nobody said it was sold cheaply.
Nonetheless, what happened then had quite understandable and explicable reasons.
Remember late 1995, the presidential elections were nearing, inflation was rampant, mostly due to the failure of major companies to pay taxes — the oil sector was barely paying anything to the budget at all.
At the same time, enterprises were not paying wages to their workers. Tensions were growing, and dismissing the heads of enterprises was impossible, as this would have created a real threat of a strike.
And this was the situation ahead of the presidential elections. At that moment I met with Mr. Zyuganov in Davos and he told me: “Don’t you worry, Mikhail Borisovich, we respect good managers, and with us [Communists] at the helm you will become director general of some major enterprise.” [Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov ran against the incumbent Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 race].
That is how things were when top government officials invited us — thirty of Russia’s leading entrepreneurs — and said: “We have to immediately ensure the receipt of taxes from the largest industrial enterprises, so we are ready to sell those enterprises to you.”
“But, to begin with, most importantly, you must yourself persuade the directors of those enterprises to hand over power to you, in other words, you are to go to them and ask them to let you privatize the given enterprise along with its incumbent director. Secondly, you will have to begin paying taxes immediately. And, thirdly, you will have to pay something for the enterprise.”
Let’s have a look at how things were. Yukos’ debts to the budget for 1996 exceeded $2 billion, while the total debt, including wage arrears and debts to contractors, stood at $3 billion.
Oil output fell from 45 million to 35 million tons per year. Can you imagine what the implications of such a drop in production were for the industry! Another point that should be taken into consideration is that the cost of production was $12 per barrel — pay particular attention to that figure.
We stabilized oil output, but as capital investments continued to decline we introduced rigid cost saving schemes. By 1997 capital investments almost reached earlier levels, while the following year we had to increase capital investments and then came 1998.
1998 brought devaluation for the entire country, but not for the oil sector. For the oil sector it meant a drop in the oil price on world markets to $8.5 per barrel, while the cost of production, as I have already said stood at $12 per barrel at the time. That means you produce oil and pay extra.
Had not it been for the crisis I would never have resorted to the measures that I resorted to, which, honestly speaking, was what helped haul the company out of crisis. I am talking about cutting staff by 30 percent, tens of thousands of people in just one year.
It is not something I am proud of but there was no alternative. The staff, that is 100,000 employees, volunteered to have their salaries slashed by 30 percent. And if you think it was fun, I can assure you it was not.
We were accused of trying to suck out all the deposits and flee, because we were reducing capital investments, laying off staff and restricting output. In 2000 and 2001 we increased capital investments, and in 2002 we reached the level. Today we have managed to reduce costs to $2 per barrel.
Another myth is that oilmen make super-profits, and it would not be a bad idea to take those super-profits away from them, and if we take them away in the form of natural rent, we will all live happily. I would be very happy if we could all be so lucky as to live well doing nothing. But, regretfully, such things happen only in fairy-tales, and we all know that.
In reality such things never happen. In 2002 the oil sector produced and sold oil worth $57 billion. It is all registered in the Central Bank’s financial statements. Taxes and duties paid — $21 billion; transportation costs — $9 billion; production, processing and distribution costs — $15 billion; capital investments — $10 billion; dividends — $2 billion.
What shall we cross out? It goes without saying that taxes and duties should remain, since they make up natural rent. I would be glad to exclude transportation. As I keep on saying, if we reduced transportation costs by building new pipelines it would be great.
Cost of production here is one of the lowest in the world, as is the cost of processing, whereas distribution costs are quite high, though that is understandable for such a large country as Russia.
As regards capital investments, we could stop making them if we did not want to produce more oil and develop new deposits.
As for dividends, here is the $2 billion everyone is after. But who will invest money in the oil industry if we don’t pay dividends?
The oil industry has to pay up to $5 billion per year in dividends. If it fails to pay, no one will give money to finance capital investments. Stealing that money is not likely to make anyone rich.
Divide this 2, 3 or even 5 billion between 140 million residents, and what will be the result? $3- $5 per month. That’s it. Meanwhile, the taxes paid by Yukos in 1998 amounted to 8 billion rubles, 127 billion in 2002, and the company will pay even more in 2003.

On Prospects
Unfortunately, the much-talked-of plan of doubling the GDP at the expense of the natural resources industries is not feasible. We could make $500 billion to $600 billion per year on the basis of old large-scale industry.
Yet, doubling growth this way is out of the question. Today we have some $400 billion. Is it a lot or a little? By 2010 the US economy will grow to 1.5 trillion, China’s — to nearly 11 trillion. Russia’s economy will be less than 10 percent of China’s.
Where do we get the money from? It may be hard to believe it, but money is in the heads of the people. In modern society raw materials decrease steadily in value, as modern technologies make it possible to reach the same results by consuming less and less raw materials.
Products are being made by people with brains; that is why we will face problems with jobs — everyone needs people with brains and nobody needs those who cannot work with their heads.
They are being substituted with robots, machines. That is the problem, because the main value today is produced by 2-3 percent of the population, referred to as the “creative minority”.
In the US they account for 7 percent of the population and for some 5 percent on average across the globe. We fail to support those people; we do not educate them properly, do not recognize them, and as a result, they either leave the country or stay in the shadows.
Each person on such a level makes $300,000 to $1 million per year with their productive capability. In other words, by losing a young man with brains, considering that in the modern world a business career is approximately 30 years, we lose $30 million at once.
What should we do if we want them to stay? Without educating them one cannot help them build a career. The second point is Russia’s integration in the world economy, because even the most talented person will not be able to fulfill their potential if there is no modern industry, no modern means of communication, modern exchange of ideas.
And finally we need to make sure that these people want to live in Russia, because if they don’t, they can easily leave because the demand for such people is tremendous across the globe.

On Conditions
What is necessary to make these people want to live in Russia? You might find this funny, but they need democracy, because these are people who don’t want to feel uncomfortable when talking to the police, these are people who want to watch whatever it is they want to watch on television, and not a single channel, they want to read the newspaper they like, and they want society to offer them the right to take part in that society, to choose the people they want to be governed by.
If they don’t get that opportunity, then only a small part of them will stay, while the rest will say, “Well, you can live however you like, but we’re going to England, America, Germany, New Zealand…” There are many countries in the world that offer these opportunities. And this is not the problem of these people, this is our problem as a Russian society.

On Conflicts of Interest
I understand quite clearly how government interests differ, if we understand the government as an official-bureaucratic apparatus on the one hand, and the interests of the business class and civil society on the other. The official-bureaucratic apparatus in its nature aims towards spreading and reproducing its power over as wide a sphere as possible. It depends on its civil servants, funded by the state budget, to ensure its own re-election. The interests of the people and of business aim at building a highly effective economy. How can this conflict be solved?
Only through elections. Yukos as a company does not and cannot have political aims. My shareholders would never allow this. About 30 percent of our employees would vote for the communists. A large part of our workforce are workers, not employees. That is why the company does not have any political aims, any factions. What I do as an individual — helping SPS and Yabloko — is my personal right. My personal money. My personal time. It has nothing to do with the company.
What is the essence of the social and civic responsibility of big business? To find the answer, we must separate the social responsibility of business from the social and civic responsibility of the people who work in business. These are not the same thing.
In my view, big business can solve one important problem — producing a mass product at a minimal price with maximum effect. Only in that case will the product be truly cheap and truly a mass product.
It’s clear that a politician and a businessman have completely different purposes. A director of a major company has a very simple purpose: maximum effectiveness. And the people he works with must share this demand. Everyone else must leave. Any mayor, even in the tiniest town, solves a different problem. He cannot lose a single person, even if that person does not suit him from an economic point of view. Moreover, he cannot and should not allow, during the development of a democratic society, for everyone in his city to think alike. On the other hand, it is in the best interests of a director of a major company that everyone inside the corporation think alike. Because it is a corporate culture that allows the company to produce a product the cheapest way possible. That is why the issues dealt with by big business and civil society are diametrically opposite. But does that mean that big business should not take any part in politics?
This is impossible, taking into account that big business intersects with political issues one way or another. Take, for example, the building of an oil pipeline to China. I believe this issue should not be delegated exclusively on a government level — it’s pure business. But politicians nonetheless raised the issue on a government level for reasons that are quite clear. Can I, as a company director, and not just as a person, calmly watch as politicians decide to route the pipeline 5,000 kilometers to Nakhodka? When I and my specialists know for certain that a pipeline to Nakhodka will be unprofitable, and the government as well as society will have to finance the oil production? Should I be silent in this situation? I believe that in this case a purely political decision cannot be made.

On Big Business
Using methods that violate the chief aims that big business was made for and that violate the laws of the government is inadmissible for a business. For a very simple reason: big business functions based on existing laws, even if they are wrong. Acting outside the law destroys the business, and limits the access a population has to products and services. This brings with it implications that are destructive for a contemporary civilized society. Other methods — like civilized lobbying, which are, in my view absolutely admissible, in the nation’s parliament — are precisely the point where the different interests of the groups should meet. In my view, this is a cornerstone of democracy — the possibility for any influence or interest group to demonstrate its point of view in front of a democratically elected body that will make the final decision.

On People in Big Business
Now, about another aspect of big business. The people — the shareholders, the managers, and the employees of the company. Some people say that they should have nothing to do with the political process, or their involvement should be limited. I was derided after saying that a part of our shareholders support the communist party. I believe that the mudslingers were certainly not from a democratic society.
Every person, every citizen of a country, regardless of who he is by profession, not only can, but must take part in the political process. Because if he doesn’t, that means he is giving someone else the right to decide how he should live his life. That someone else is not always a worthy person or organization. That is why an independent involvement in the political process is not only acceptable, but preferable for everyone, including major businessmen, employees, and company shareholders.

On Choice and Responsibility
Our country has a history of serfdom and slavery. A very brief interval ended recently. And, unfortunately, the psychology of society is the psychology of serfdom. In this situation, the responsibility of successful businessmen (regardless of whether it’s small business or big business) is to support the democratic process, regardless of its potential problems. This is the moral duty of these people — a duty to their own children to take part in this process. In our country it is easy to take away a hired worker’s job, to stifle him. But if someone has the money, or the social position, or the courage to fight this, then he is simply obligated to fight.
Regrettably, we still do not have any institutes of civil society, when this function could have been handed over to political parties and public organizations. For a society like ours, with a history like Russia’s, this is normal. We have to understand this, but we also have to struggle to change this. First of all, through education — preparing the future generation. We must say that we have a choice — not between civil society and business, but between business and authoritarianism. This isn’t a perfect alternative, because business only recently walked around in maroon suits and even today doesn’t appear very appealing. Still, we have a real choice: between people in military uniform and a civil society.
Our strength is pretty much equal. And the problem is not that one side has military uniforms and weapons while the other side has nothing. The problem is the mentality.

Interview with Sabrina Tavernise (10.2003)

FRONTLINE/World reporter Sabrina Tavernise's exclusive interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, just weeks before his dramatic arrest:

Tell us about your past, your personal past. What did your parents do?

My parents were Muscovites. They worked at the Kaliber factory. It's a factory that manufactures various measuring devices: rulers, micrometers, projectors. ... I went to this pre-school that shared a fence with the factory, and we would always climb the fence with the intent of pocketing some interesting metal things for ourselves. My parents worked there as engineers. My father was a construction engineer, and my mother was a production engineer.

In 1991, when Yeltsin stood on the tank, where were you?

I was in the White House [in Moscow]. I was an advisor to the Russian Prime Minister [at the time, who was then facing down a coup.]

Were you scared? Do you remember that feeling?

Yes, of course. I was absolutely calm during that whole situation. In these cases, I'm always calm. I was just convinced that we'd either be sent to jail or shot. I had an uncomfortable feeling with Yeltsin's press secretary, Mr. Vashchyanov. ... He's very intelligent looking, he wears glasses, and he had a machine gun across his chest. And he is talking to me, and he turns his head to me, and he turns the gun to me too, and I just [gasps for air] because I could see that the safety device was taken off of the gun, and his finger was on the trigger. It was just a more comfortable way for him to hold it. [Laughs]
Everything else was relatively calm.

Have you ever thought of leaving Russia?

During Soviet times, of course not. I was a student at the university in the department that dealt with rocket fuel. No one would have let us leave the country. But when perestroika took place, I thought about what it would be like to live someplace else. And I even tried, as I traveled, to feel what it would be like to live in a different society. I've been to Europe and it didn't work out. At one point, I even bought an apartment in England and then sold it.

Why? You didn't feel comfortable?

You know, every person has a different sense of home. Some people are more cosmopolitan; it is easier for them to travel all over the world, live in other countries. Many journalists are among those people. And others are homebodies by nature. Their home, their own circle of friends, that for them personally is more important. And I probably fit into the second category. I have to travel a lot, but relaxation to me is when I am at home.

What is the most important change in your life between 1991 and today? Do you even have enough time to brush your teeth?

There haven't been many changes in my everyday life. I'm living in the same way that I'm used to. But there is a serious lack of time. I allow myself certain things that help me make up for the lack of time. For example, I have a driver, because in a car, I either read or sleep. Catch up on sleep; especially if you consider Moscow's traffic jams, it's not so bad. And I now have the opportunity to fly on a private jet, which really allows me to save time and it allows me to be more mobile, because it's a problem for me if I have to leave home for a long time. I can even fly to United States for a day, that's important for me. That I feel is a positive part of the changes.

Ten years ago, many people said that everybody had to give bribes to do business in Russia. Since everyone took bribes, they said, how could they be judged on the basis of what was legal or legal? If it wasn't right, they said, then everyone would be in jail. How do you feel about that? Was business back then the way Americans saw it: "Russia, Mafia, bandits?" What's changed now?

You know, the business sphere in Russia was difficult, and remains complicated....each person in every moment has certain self-limitations: what he can do to reach his goals and what he can't do to reach his goals. I admit that those people that have very high limitations become saints, but they do not become entrepreneurs. And people whose bar is set too low, I don't think that they remain entrepreneurs for very long, they become criminals. And the rest depends on what limitations you choose for yourself. I made a choice for myself: I said that I will not break the law. I saw that the situation was changing, I knew how business was conducted in other countries in the world, and how it varies, but nevertheless I liked the way that open public companies conducted business. That's why I said that not only will I not break any laws, but I also will not break any widely accepted ethical principles. And if I am not sure whether something fits into that idea, I will ask. But before 1999 I did not operate like that. I did not break Russian law, but everything else wasn't my concern.

What do you mean by everything else?

Everything else is the question of ethical standards. Russian legislation allowed many things that in the West were already considered inappropriate. For example, our standards on insider information were completely different, our standards of false advertising were completely different, our standards of working with shareholders were completely different. I worked within the standards that existed in Russia. I agree that many people have had to break or are breaking laws within the boundaries of their business that exist there and ethical conventions that exist here. I was able to avoid that, and still be successful in business.

How did you manage to avoid that?

You see, every person looks for opportunities. If he is a little bit lucky, he finds the opportunities. If he is less lucky, but is ready to break the law, then he finds other opportunities. I was able to avoid that. And that is why I'm fearlessly talking to our respected prosecution, telling them that you can show that we broke ethical standards as far as we understand them today, and that is true, and it went on until 1999. But we did not break the law.

I see you have a new office.

In the other office we had to remodel to meet our needs, we constantly had problems with our network. We use paperless technology; we do not have any paper output in the company, and it turned out that we needed a completely different technical system. But to transfer the company while we renovated the office space, and then move back, as we could in New York -- unfortunately there aren't many office buildings of that caliber available in Moscow, so we just built ourselves a new building and sold the old one.

And what is that picture behind you? [pointing to a large abstract painting on the wall]

Honestly, I don't know. I don't trust my artistic taste, so the designers that were hired to decorate did it according to their taste. My demands were only that [the whole office] would be a transformable space. ... The structure of the company is constantly changing. The composition of the necessary working groups is constantly changing. We have many divisions that are based on the project principle, which means that they are put together for each project. They need different types of space, so [we need to be able to] take it apart and put it together.

And what about at home?

At home, I'm very conservative. ... I can't stand the modern design, all those glass structures on the bottom. I like everything to be dependable, heavy, English furniture.

Can you describe your company? Has the merging [between Yukos and smaller rival Sibneft] taken place?

No, the merge has not taken place yet. We are currently in the process and we have to be done by the end of the year, and then starting January 1st, we will be operating as one unified company.

What will happen; what will the company [be] like?

The company [Yukos] will be the largest oil company in Russia, and the 4th largest in the world in oil production. It's a large Russian company, a large oil company by global standards. ... But let's not overstate the role of oil in the Russian economy. If we take Saudi Arabia for example, there 90% of the economy is tied up in oil. In Russia the oil fraction of the economy is around 20%, and that's oil and natural gas combined.... ... Our company produces/will be producing somewhere around 5% of the gross national product. That's a lot for one company, but it's less than, for example, the share of Nokia [cellphone company] in Finland. It's a large Russian company, [and] large as an oil company by global standards. ...

What is happening with your company right now?

Today there is an attack going on by the government that has been motivated by certain political powers. This attack is not targeting the company, but targeting very specific people. Without a doubt, today the shareholders of Yukos are becoming victims of the attack; some staff members are becoming victims. The targets of the attack are the shareholders and the management of the MENATEP Group that is in turn a shareholder of the company Yukos.

Why is the government attacking specific people within a specific company? What do they want with them?

We, without a doubt, happen to be very influential people in the country. And we have our own views on development of our country; it's development according to the democratic model. There is a section of the government that supports that model, and there is a section of the government that does not support that model. There is consensus in place on the issue of property. Everyone thinks that property ought to be private. Some of the people think that private property has to coincide with democracy, and some of the people think that private property can exist, but we can hold off on democracy. The company itself has nothing to do with it, the company itself is a matter of private property, and there is a consensus on that issue. But the people, the shareholders, they are fairly influential, and they have the opportunities to support one or another political power.... I have announced that I support two political parties, liberal-democratic in their nature: the Union of Right Forces, and Yabloko. And that's a problem.

So they think that you are too influential?

We are fairly influential, and we have the opportunities to help those that are choosing an alternate development route. So it is not a question of my personal involvement in politics or the question of personal political involvement by the employees or shareholders of the company. It's the question of our ability and our desire as individuals to support the democratic developments in our country. Not everyone is okay with that. There are people in our society who think that it's normal, and others who think that we should be denied our civil rights. I don't agree with that. I think that that property and civil rights are not only equal in merit, but civil rights are even more important than property.

Would you describe Russia as being between two models?

Everything is very simple and very clear. In our country in 1996, we had presidential elections, where we elected president Yeltsin. And in that moment we had a choice between the path of development that was taken by France, America, and other developed western countries. That was one way, and another way that was offered to us was the path of development taken by the Soviet Union, China prior to reforms, and so on. It was a clear alternative. The people chose the option that would follow the development in the western societies. We began moving in that direction, and that other alternative no longer exists -- no one is asking us to go back to the Soviet Union. But now we're presented with a different choice: are we choosing the model of, let's say, the United States, or the model of Venezuela or Guatemala? ... Some people think that Russia should follow the example of Guatemala, where there is private property, but at the same time all the political life is in the hands of the government. Some people think, and I'm among them, that in modern society it is impossible, if we want to be a developed country, to say that there should be private property but it's not important what happens to democracy. These are not separate issues. A country cannot be wealthy if it is not democratic.

Among Russians there is some criticism about privatization, and the deals that were made during the early 1990's. How would you respond to those people, the screaming grandma, or babushka, on the street corner who insults you? She was not able to make any deals...

To the grandmother I say that in 1990-95, you stood in line at the gas station, if you owned a vehicle, and you did not receive any benefits from the oil companies' budget. Oil companies did not pay taxes [then]. Today in 2003, we produce fifty percent more oil than we did in 1996, we pay five times more in taxes, out of which the salaries for teachers and doctors are paid, and you are not waiting in line at the gas station. That's what I tell the grandmother. But this is what I'll tell an American investor who doubts whether or not the shares were rightfully obtained: I'll tell him that the government, for completely understandable reasons, made the decision to sell off a large industry because it did not pay taxes. ... This was on the brink of the 1996 elections, when everyone was certain the Communists were going to win. The Communists firmly announced that any companies that were sold off would be nationalized without payment. So you understand that no investor would have paid a single dollar for this company. We paid, for the first part of the company, a total of $450 million-- $150 million before the election and then $300 million after the elections.

Do you have a receipt?

Of course, of course. And that's considering that the company was $3 billion dollars in debt -- it was a huge risk. But when we bought the second part of the company in 1997, after the election, such risk didn't exist, and we paid $1.2 billion for it. That was right on the eve of the oil crisis, and there were not that many investors who wanted to buy a company in Russia. Americans think that in ten years of democracy, the Communist Party has been the biggest threat to democracy in Russia. What do you think is the biggest threat? The biggest threat is that we do not have a civil society, and so there are people, groups of people, who want to have the power in their hands, basically bypassing democratic procedures, by keeping the shell, but taking out the meaning. There are people who think that the country would do well with an authoritarian regime.

And who are they?

There are very many people in the government who came out of the Soviet times and have not changed. There are [also] younger politicians who think that the authoritarian way of developing is right for the country. On the one hand, it seems like there is a democracy in place, a multi-party system, and so on, but on the other hand there isn't a democracy, which means that very little depends on the expressed desires of the people. There is an impression of a [democratic] society, an independent court system, but when you look at it closely, you can see that it is not independent. A civil society, a self-governing society by the citizens does not exist.

Is that really a threat?

Of course. It's a serious threat. In Russia in the last thousand years, since the Novgorod Veche, [a popular assembly in ancient Russia] we have been taking a step towards the West. And in Russia, the West and democracy are synonymous. And then we've taken steps towards Asia..., which, for Russia, is synonymous with totalitarianism. For us, there really is a question of what we are moving towards, the West or the East. It's a traditional problem for Russia, and probably the country's most poignant. If we were to take Peter the Great for example, everyone thinks that he pushed Russia closer to the West, but in reality he, much like Ivan the Terrible, pushed it towards the East, by devaluing human life. In the beginning of the 20th century we tried to move West...Railroad construction began in Russia, and Western entrepreneurs began to take part in the work. And then in 1917 we went back to the East again. Again human life lost all value for us. For us the West means a high value on human life, for us the West is civil rights. For us the East is the lack of civil rights, and as a result, no value on the human life. Please understand that this has nothing to do with property. Property is a separate thing; it can be decided one way or another. We're talking about whether we will have a society with civil rights or without civil rights. I don't know how serious a choice that seems to you, but for me, as a citizen of my country, it is a very serious choice.

So which direction are we moving in now, to the East or to the West?

We're moving towards solving the problem. We dealt with one issue in 1996, whether or not to have private property or not to have private property. ... And now we come to this issue. And I'm absolutely convinced that this issue will be before our citizens at the 2008 election. Today it is impossible to say where we are going, East or West. Part of our society is moving East and part of it is moving West. Society cannot split apart, we have a unified country, we don't have any place were we can separate. So we must come to a consensus within our society. But whether it will be an authoritarian consensus or a democratic consensus cannot be said today.

As far as politics, what do you think was [exiled oligarch Boris] Berezovsky's mistake? Why is he outside the country [recently granted political asylum in Britain] and why can't he operate in Russia?

Berezovsky is the type of person who already lost interest in business. He was interested in politics, but continued to do business. And he created a lot of very difficult contradictions for himself. Then, the mistakes that he made, he made them as a politician, in my opinion. I don't want to go over them now. You can be involved in business, you can be involved in politics, but you cannot simultaneously play well on both fields. There is always a choice.

Are you involved in politics?

I'm without a doubt involved in lobbying for the interests of the company at the State Duma [parliament]. As a citizen I support one or another political power, which I talk about publicly. Myself personally, I am not involved in politics. I have not taken part in a political process. You understand that it is one thing to financially support people who have similar views, and a different thing entirely to take part in a political process yourself. One demands money, and I as a person have it; another demands time and mental energy, which I as a head of a company do not have. ...

source:
FRONTLINEWORLD
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