Russia: the opposition demonstrated in Moscow and denounced the “colossal fraud” in the legislative elections

Several hundred people protested in central Moscow on Saturday against the results of the parliamentary elections held in Russia last week, which the ruling United Russia party won by a large majority.

The act, convened by the Communist Party (PC), united between 400 and 1,000 people, according to data from the police and independent media, respectively.

Among those present at the rally, there was not the veteran leader of the CP, Guennadi Ziuganov, who is due to participate this Saturday in a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the leaders of the five parties that entered the Duma or Lower House of the Russian Parliament after the recent legislative elections.

The ruling “United Russia has stolen the seats of the deputies”, declared Valéri Rashkin, first secretary of the Communist Party in Moscow, criticizing “the colossal electoral fraud in Moscow”.

Besides the Communists, the second most voted force in Russia, the new parliament will be assisted by representatives of Fair Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Formation of the New New People.

PC calls on authorities to overturn e-voting result in Moscow, considering that this voting method is the one which gave rise to the greatest number of irregularities during the last elections.

The Vice-President of the Communist Party, Dmitry Novikov, announced Monday that, regarding the electronic voting in Moscow, the formation does not recognize the results, since they were published several hours apart from the rest of the cities and regions, which would indicate an alleged manipulation of the results.

Him too Independent electoral body Golos has joined in criticism for possible electoral fraud, as the capital’s results include 78,000 more electronic ballots than those issued, as indicated by the co-president of the movement, Roman Udot, on his Facebook account.

In most of Moscow’s constituencies, opposition candidates led the way after counting ballots at polling stations. However, pro-government allied Kremlin candidates ranked first after the publication of the results of electronic voting, according to Zyugánov.

Faced with allegations of fraud, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday defended the legality of the result of remote voting in parliamentary elections by declaring that it is a system “demanded” by the voters, especially in times of pandemic.

However, the Communists insisted that electronic voting “stole the victory” from several of its candidatesAn opinion that was expressed this Saturday by a large number of participants in the event organized in Pushkin Square in Moscow.

However, the concentration in the capital has not received authorization from the authorities, the police did not disperse the act, which lasted just over an hour and dissolved after the onset of a rain.

With all, the police tried to prevent the interventions of the faithful by playing loud music on the sound system, choosing patriotic themes for the occasion.

The ruling United Russia party won 324 of the Duma’s 450 seats in the elections, followed by Communist Party (57), social democrats of Fair Russia (27), the Liberal Democratic Party (21) and the constitution New People, which received 13 seats.

The turnout in the elections amounted to 51.72%, compared to 47.88% of the census who voted in the 2016 election.

(With information from EFE and Europa Press)

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