Gorbachev urges Russia poll re-run amid protests

Mikhail Gorbachev says Russia's election results "Do not reflect the will of the people." (AFP/File, Pascal Guyot)

December 8, 2011

MOSCOW (AFP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday called for Russia's elections to be re-run due to fraud, as the opposition vowed new rallies contesting the results despite mass arrests.

Police threw a huge security cordon around the square in central Moscow which saw the latest protest on Tuesday night to prevent a new rally, as the opposition called for a mass gathering near the Kremlin on Saturday.

The protests and a loss of support in the parliamentary elections have provided Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with an unexpected challenge as he prepares to return to the Kremlin in 2012 presidential polls.

Amid growing international alarm over the claims of vote rigging, Gorbachev said the results of Sunday's poll should be invalidated and new elections held due to "numerous falsifications and rigging."

"The results do not reflect the will of the people," Gorbachev, president when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, told the Interfax news agency.

"Therefore I think they (Russia's leaders) can only take one decision -- annul the results of the election and hold new ones."

Putin's United Russia party won the polls with a reduced majority, amid signs his once-invincible popularity might be waning. The opposition says his party's performance would have been even worse in free elections.

The Russian strongman has yet to make any comment about the demonstrations, which commentators have described as the biggest opposition rallies since the chaotic early 1990s just after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He formally filed his application to stand for the presidency with the central election commission on Wednesday but television pictures only showed him smiling enigmatically.

The parliament polls were seen as a litmus test of Putin's popularity as he prepares to take the Kremlin from his protege Dmitry Medvedev and embark on a new six year mandate.

Activists say some results stretched all credibility, such as United Russia's polling 99.50 percent in the Caucasus region of Chechnya and almost all the residents of a Moscow psychiatric hospital voting for the party.

Internet-based protesters vowed further demonstrations in the days to come, despite a warning by police that participants in unsanctioned protests would be arrested.

A group "for honest elections" said on its Facebook page that a new demonstration would take place on Revolution Square in central Moscow on Saturday. More than 10,000 members of the Facebook group have already promised to attend.

Another social networking group, calling itself "against the party of swindlers and thieves" -- the opposition's slogan for United Russia -- said protests would take place every day at 7:00 pm (1500 GMT).

However it was forced to change the announced location for Wednesday's rally at the last moment to the outskirts of Moscow when the planned site of Triumfalnaya Ploshad was swarmed by hundreds of riot police in the afternoon.

The riot police -- known as "cosmonauts" locally due to their shiny helmets -- have over the last days become a familiar presence at potential meeting spots for the opposition.

Police said 550 people were detained in Tuesday's rally in Moscow with another 200 held in Saint Petersburg. Many were released but Moscow Echo radio said six of those detained were given jail terms of up to 15 days.

The authorities were caught by surprise when the first opposition rally on Monday evening attracted thousands. Influential opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, who coined the slogan "swindlers and thieves", was among those arrested and was sentenced Tuesday to 15 days in jail.

State television news has virtually ignored the demonstrations, and the news bulletins on Channel One did not contain a single mention of the protests all day.

But with the authorities clearly nervous, police said that more than 51,000 police were guarding the city streets, among them 2,000 army conscripts, in a heightened security regime.

United Russia polled just under 50 percent of the vote after winning more than 64 percent in 2007 but still held on to an absolute majority of seats in parliament. Its biggest opposition in the State Duma will be the Communists.