{"id":146630,"date":"2011-12-06T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=146630"},"modified":"2011-12-06T13:01:36","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T09:01:36","slug":"hundreds-arrested-following-protests-against-electoral-fraud-in-russia-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/12\/06\/hundreds-arrested-following-protests-against-electoral-fraud-in-russia-video.html","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds Arrested Following Protests Against Electoral Fraud in Russia (VIDEO)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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, <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/europe\/russia\/8937133\/Hundreds-of-protesters-arrested-following-Russian-elections.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The Telegraph<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>The contentious vote sparked vast opposition rallies in Moscow and the country&#8217;s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg with police saying 300 people were arrested in Moscow alone, including popular anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Russia without Putin,&#8221; the demonstrators cried.<\/p>\n<p>Police said they arrested about 100 others at the St. Petersburg rally, which was not authorized.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n3JLP-xAuM8?wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Britain and the United States have expressed &#8220;serious concern&#8221; about the conduct of Russia&#8217;s parliamentary elections, which election monitors said had stifled competition and shown a &#8220;lack of fairness&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/europe\/russia\/8936494\/Britain-and-US-express-concern-over-Russia-election.html\">Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, called for an investigation into the polls<\/a>, which saw United Russia party narrowly gain a majority of seats but lose nearly 15 per cent of its support from the previous election.<\/p>\n<p>In remarks sure to antagonize Russia&#8217;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 &#8220;and other troubling practices&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She said Washington was also concerned that internal Russian election monitors were harassed, including by cyber-attacks on their websites.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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&#8221; said Clinton, attending an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn.<\/p>\n<p>She added: &#8220;The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve free, fair, transparent elections and leaders who are accountable to them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/1moscow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-146561 aligncenter\" title=\"1moscow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/1moscow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/1moscow.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/1moscow-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain accepted the OCSE&#8217;s reporting without question. &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/2moscow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-146562 aligncenter\" title=\"2moscow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/2moscow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/2moscow.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/2moscow-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Observers from the OSCE declared that the election was marred by &#8220;serious indications of ballot stuffing&#8221; and &#8220;a convergence of the state and the governing party, limited political competition and a lack of fairness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The election was the first chance Russians were given to pronounce on Putin&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/3moscow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-146563 aligncenter\" title=\"3moscow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/3moscow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/3moscow.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/3moscow-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The Communist party came second with almost 20 per cent of the vote with two Kremlin-friendly parties coming third and fourth.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Estimates of the number of protesters Monday night ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. They chanted &#8220;Russia without Putin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/4moscow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-146566 aligncenter\" title=\"4moscow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/4moscow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/4moscow.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/4moscow-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The honeymoon is over,&#8221; Boris Nemtsov, one of the country&#8217;s main opposition leaders, told Ekho Moskvy radio. &#8220;Putin and his party have suffered a crushing defeat. Nobody will consider this parliament legally elected.&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The main result of these elections is that the people have understood that the king has no clothes,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Putin and Medvedev put a brave face on the results insisting the elections were entirely fair.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will allow us to work calmly and smoothly, maintaining stability,&#8221; Putin told a government meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photos: Konstantin Rubakhin<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The contentious vote sparked vast opposition rallies in Moscow and the country&#8217;s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg with&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}