Just days after tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets to demand new parliamentary elections amid allegations of massive fraud in a Dec. 4 vote, the Kremlin has given its opponents an answer: No.Playing down evidence that widespread ballot-box stuffing and voter intimidation marred the victory of his United Russia party, President Dmitry Medvedev announced that the newly elected State Duma will convene its first session on Dec. 21. That’s about three weeks ahead of usual practice, and seems chosen to take the wind out the sails of a protest movement that had chosen Dec. 24 as the date of its next big gathering to demand a new election.
Mr. Medvedev has promised that complaints about the Duma election will be investigated, but a Kremlin spokesman said the allegations, even if proven true, only affected 1 per cent of the total votes cast, and thus didn’t alter the final results. The opposition says election officials tinkered with millions of ballots in an effort to bolster United Russia, which won the race with just under 50 per cent of the vote, according to the official tally.
“The State Duma must begin work,” Mr. Medvedev said in a meeting with the leaders of the four parties that won seats in the disputed vote. In a nod to the biggest protests Russia has seen since the early 1990s, he said the parliament needed to convene because “we must continue work not only on economic issues, but on reforming the political system. [We must] take more decisive steps to remove barriers on political activity.”
The announcement seemed unlikely to deter an opposition movement that is growing in strength and had already acknowledged that it was unlikely that the Kremlin would easily give in to its demands. At a pair of strategy sessions Tuesday in Moscow, senior opposition figures said they would go ahead with the Dec. 24 protest. Regular demonstrations are expected to follow in the weeks leading up to the March 4 presidential election, which is emerging as the real focal point of the showdown on the streets.
While the conduct of the Dec. 4 vote is what finally brought Russians into the streets, much of their anger has been directed at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is planning a return to the presidency (a post he held from 2000 to 2008) in next year’s election after four years in the theoretically subordinate prime minister’s post. Under a side deal that angered many here, Mr. Medvedev agreed to switch jobs with Mr. Putin and become his prime minister after the March vote.
“Putin is of the opinion that if he agrees to our demands, he will show his weakness,” said Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Solidarity movement that has helped organize the protests. “We don’t have any right to drop our demands, or we will lose our supporters.”
Beyond a rerun of the Duma election, the protesters are also demanding the resignation of the head of the Central Elections Commission, the registration of banned political parties and the release of political prisoners. Mr. Nemtsov suggested that the opposition should add to its manifesto a call for Russians to vote for anyone but Mr. Putin in the coming presidential election.
Such a tactic could play into the hands of billionaire tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, who announced Monday that he would run for the presidency. While opposition leaders have poured scorn on his bid, saying that he is running at the Kremlin’s behest to give voters the illusion of choice, his candidacy is the most serious threat to Mr. Putin. The other three known candidates – Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, far-right figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky and long-time Putin ally Sergei Mironov – all have run for the presidency before and lost badly.
Origin
Source: Globe
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