Epress.am News from Armenia
Despite the failure of the ruling United Russia party to win even half the vote, monitors said the polls had been slanted in its favour, The Telegraph reports.
The contentious vote sparked vast opposition rallies in Moscow and the country’s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg with police saying 300 people were arrested in Moscow alone, including popular anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.
“Russia without Putin,” the demonstrators cried.
Police said they arrested about 100 others at the St. Petersburg rally, which was not authorized.
Britain and the United States have expressed “serious concern” about the conduct of Russia’s parliamentary elections, which election monitors said had stifled competition and shown a “lack of fairness”.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, called for an investigation into the polls, which saw United Russia party narrowly gain a majority of seats but lose nearly 15 per cent of its support from the previous election.
In remarks sure to antagonize Russia’s most powerful man, she said monitors from the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had raised questions about the possible stuffing of ballot boxes, manipulation of voter lists “and other troubling practices”.
She said Washington was also concerned that internal Russian election monitors were harassed, including by cyber-attacks on their websites.
“Russian voters deserve a full investigation of all credible reports of electoral fraud and manipulation and we hope in particular that then Russian authorities will take action” said Clinton, attending an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn.
She added: “The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve free, fair, transparent elections and leaders who are accountable to them.”
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain accepted the OCSE’s reporting without question. “It does give rise to serious concerns and I hope this will be taken very seriously by the Russian authorities. We look forward to seeing how they will act.”
Observers from the OSCE declared that the election was marred by “serious indications of ballot stuffing” and “a convergence of the state and the governing party, limited political competition and a lack of fairness.”
Winning almost half the share of the vote would be considered a triumph in many other countries, but the sharp fall in support coupled with credible fraud allegations meant United Russia had little to celebrate.
The election was the first chance Russians were given to pronounce on Putin’s decision to return to the presidency next year after serving four years as prime minister with his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev as president. It was hardly a ringing endorsement.
With 96 per cent of the vote counted, the Central Election Commission said United Russia had won 49.5 per cent of the vote, technically short of a simple majority but just enough to win a majority of seats in the Duma, the lower house of parliament. The party is forecast to control 238 seats in the 450-seat Duma for the next five years, down from 315 seats previously.
The Communist party came second with almost 20 per cent of the vote with two Kremlin-friendly parties coming third and fourth.
Several thousand people on Monday night protested in Moscow against Putin and his party, in what was perhaps the largest opposition rally in years. Police detained some of the activists.
A group of several hundred then marched toward the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin, but were stopped by riot police and taken away in buses.
Estimates of the number of protesters Monday night ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. They chanted “Russia without Putin.”
“The honeymoon is over,” Boris Nemtsov, one of the country’s main opposition leaders, told Ekho Moskvy radio. “Putin and his party have suffered a crushing defeat. Nobody will consider this parliament legally elected.” Nemtsov, whose anti-Kremlin PARNAS party was banned from contesting the election on a technicality, said an incident last month in which Putin was publicly booed risked becoming routine unless the strongman allowed more political freedom.
“The main result of these elections is that the people have understood that the king has no clothes,” he said.
Putin and Medvedev put a brave face on the results insisting the elections were entirely fair.
“This will allow us to work calmly and smoothly, maintaining stability,” Putin told a government meeting on Monday.
Photos: Konstantin Rubakhin