Rally Against Election Fraud Ramps Up in Moscow Over Weekend

Moscow was the scene of a protest over election fraud that saw tens of thousands of Muscovites gathering. The crowd assembled in a square across from the Kremlin on Saturday as a means of protesting alleged election fraud and to voice their desire to have Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ousted from power. It is the largest protest or rally of any sort to have occurred in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The demonstrations are occurring just a few months before Putin is slated to seek a third presidential term after serving two successive terms from 2000 – 2008. As prime minister, he has essentially remained in power in Russia since that time. Though state-controlled television in Russia claims that Putin is a man supported by “the people,” the protestors sought to dispel that myth. Noted one demonstrator, “The falsification that authorities are doing today have turned the country into a big theater, with clowns like in a circus.” One of the main problems during the most recent elections is that the websites of the nation’s primary independent radio station and the country’s sole independent election-monitoring group were down as the result of denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.

In addition to the large protest in Moscow, other protests occurred throughout the nation, in more than 50 cities and from the far Pacific Coast to the southwest portion of the country. Over 7,000 gathered in St. Petersburg to protest. Perhaps fueling the rallies, current President Dmitry Medvedev acknowledged earlier in the week that election laws may have been violated. Putin himself suggested a “dialog with the opposition-minded,” which is a departure from his typical, hard-edged approach to dealing with opposition to his leadership.