Aljazeera
10 December 2011

Moscow rally against “poll fraud” by ruling party attracts tens of thousands, with protests in many other cities.Last Modified: 10

Protests in Russia are taking place against Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule amid signs of swelling anger over a poll won by his ruling United Russia party with the alleged help of widescale fraud.

More than 20,000 people have already gathered on a square across the river from the Kremlin on Saturday, after receiving permission from the Kremlin for the event.

Authorities had detained about 1,600 activists over the past few days who had joined unsanctioned rallies against the December 4 vote.

The opposition is also organising rallies in at least 14 other major cities in a rare outpouring of mistrust in a system put in place by Putin when he first became president in 2000.

Protests have already begun elsewhere, with several hundred marching in Vladivostok, seven timezones to the east of Moscow.

A 30,000-strong demonstration would be the largest to hit the Russian capital in 20 years, in what some see as the first warning bell for the former foreign agent and his secretive inner circle of security chiefs.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Moscow, said: “Troops from the interior ministry and water cannons are also on standby in Moscow.

“I do think, that if the protestors try and widen the rally, then there could well be a clampdown.”

The authorities’ decision to permit Saturday’s rallies to go ahead nationwide is a first for the Putin era and suggests the Kremlin would prefer to avoid street battles between protesters and the riot police.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ivan Safranchuk, a Russian political analyst, said: “People will be allowed to protest, but direct political change won’t happen.”

Allegations

Putin’s United Russia has been bruised by allegations of corruption, after opposition parties and international observers said the vote was marred by vote-rigging, including alleged ballot-box stuffing and false voter rolls.

Russians preparing for Saturday’s protests in Moscow

The official results of the elections to Russia’s Duma showed that the ruling party United Russia lost 77 of its 315 seats, just retaining a small majority.

Barker said there is a widespread view, fuelled by mobile phone videos and accounts on internet social networking sites, that there was wholesale election fraud, and that Putin’s party cheated its way to victory.

Putin accepted the vote’s outcome but stayed silent about the protests for three days before accusing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of inciting the unrest by questioning the polls.

He said Clinton’s criticism “had set the tone for some people inside the country and given a signal”.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner retorted that “nothing could be further from the truth”.

Putin has remained Russia’s most popular and powerful politician as both president until 2008 and prime minister today – an image he has cultivated with tough talking against foreign powers and warm words for the Soviet past.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies