[JewJoleSole]

Russia's Putin faces protests after poll triumph



By Timothy Heritage
MOSCOW | Mon Mar 5, 2012 10:51am IST

(Reuters) - Vladimir Putin faces new protests on Monday to challenge his victory in a presidential election he said had prevented Russia from falling into the hands of enemies trying to usurp power. Putin's opponents, complaining of widespread fraud in Sunday's election, said they did not recognise the results and would rally near the Kremlin at 7 p.m. (1500 GMT).

But the former KGB spy, who after four years as prime minister will be returning to the post he held from 2000 until 2008, said with tears rolling down his cheeks that he had won a "clean" victory. "I promised you we would win. We have won. Glory to Russia," Putin, dressed in an anorak and flanked by outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev, told tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters on Sunday night under the Kremlin's red walls.

Denouncing attempts to "destroy Russia's statehood and usurp power", he said: "The Russian people have shown today that such scenarios will not succeed in our land ... They shall not pass!" Putin, 59, is on collision course with the mainly middle-class protesters who have staged rallies in the capital and other big cities since a disputed parliamentary poll on December 4.

The protest organisers, who see Putin as an autocratic leader whose return to power will stymie hope of economic and political reforms, said their demonstrations would now grow. "He is forcing things to breaking point. He is declaring war on us. As a result the base of aversion to him is growing," said journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, one of the leaders of the opposition protest movement.

"He is forcing things to breaking point. He is declaring war on us. As a result the base of aversion to him is growing."

"DECLARATION OF WAR"

Partial results, with nearly 100 percent of the votes counted, put Putin on almost 64 percent of the votes. His nearest rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, was on about 17 percent of votes, and nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, former parliamentary speaker Sergei Mironov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov were below 10 percent, although Prokhorov won plaudits for his campaign.

Zyuganov said his party would not recognise the result and called the election "illegitimate, dishonest and not transparent". Liberal leader Vladimir Ryzhkov also said it was not legitimate. Despite the opposition, mainly among well-educated and relatively well-off young professionals, Putin's support remains high in the provinces and his victory had not been in doubt.

The initial challenge for the man credited by many Russians with rebuilding the country's image and overseeing an economic boom in his first presidency, had been to win more than half the votes on Sunday and avoid a second-round runoff.

His clear victory will enable him to portray his return to the presidency as a strong sign of public suport against the protesters, whom he has portrayed as a destabilising minority and pawns of foreign governments. But the mood has shifted in the country of 143 million and the urban protest movement portrays him as an obstacle to change and the guardian of a corrupt system of power.

Putin, who will be inaugurated in May, is likely to revert to the fighting talk against the West that was the hallmark of his first presidency and his election campaign. Economists say a key test of Putin's return will be how far he is ready to go to reform an economy heavily dependent on energy exports, and caution that his populist campaign spending promises could return to haunt him.

"It's a watershed - Russia faces decline and stagnation unless they really kick-start reforms, and push forward an ambitious reform agenda," said Tim Ash, head of emerging markets research at Royal Bank of Scotland in London. An international observer mission was due to announce its findings at 2 p.m. (1000 GMT) and thousands of people took part as voluntary monitors to try to prevent fraud.

Golos, an independent monitoring group, said it had registered at least 3,100 reports of violations nationwide.

(editing by Elizabeth Piper)

[Aizutox]

Hundreds of anti-Putin protesters detained in Russia

By Lidia Kelly and Alissa de Carbonnel
MOSCOW | Mon Mar 5, 2012 4:37pm EST

(Reuters) - Russian riot police detained more than 500 protesters including opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Monday at rallies challenging the legitimacy of Vladimir Putin's victory in the presidential election. Putin, who secured almost 64 percent of the votes on Sunday, portrayed his return to the presidency as a triumph over opponents who were trying to usurp power, though international monitors said the vote was clearly skewed in his favour.

But opposition leaders said they drew 20,000 people into Moscow's Pushkin Square, the scene of dissident protests during Soviet times, to call for new elections and an opening up of the political system crafted by Putin during his 12-year rule. "They robbed us," Navalny, a 35-year-old anti-corruption blogger, told the crowd before his detention. "We are the power," he said to chants of "Russia without Putin" and "Putin is a thief."

The atmosphere at the rally was jovial at first, but became tense when riot police in helmets moved in to disperse several thousand activists who stayed on the square. Encircling one group of protest leaders huddled in a fountain closed down for winter, black-helmeted riot police detained Navalny and others and marched them to waiting police vans.

Opposition leaders said 500-1,000 people were detained but police put the number at 250 and said 14,000 people had attended the rally. The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said on Twitter that the arrests were troubling and that freedom of assembly and speech were universal values. Thousands of Putin supporters staged rallies closer to the red walls of the Kremlin, singing songs, waving Russian flags and chanting Prime Minister Putin's name.

At least 300 people were detained by riot police at unsanctioned protests in the northern city of St Petersburg, Putin's home town, a police spokesman said. Up to 3,000 people turned out in St Petersburg, witnesses said. Putin says he won a six-year term as Kremlin chief in a fair and open contest, but vote monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe echoed the opposition's complaints that the election had been slanted to help him.

"The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain. This was not the case in Russia," Tonino Picula, one of the vote monitors, said on Monday. "According to our assessment, these elections were unfair."

"UNFAIR" VOTE

The U.S. State Department called for an "independent, credible" investigation into all reported violations. The monitors said there had been some improvements from a parliamentary poll on December 4 which observers said was marred by irregularities, but said Putin still had an advantage over his rivals through massive media coverage and the use of state resources to help him extend his domination of Russia for six more years.

Although the observers' findings have no legal bearing, they undermine Russian election officials' statements that there were no serious violations. They would also support some in their view that elections ultimately have little real significance in Russia; that power is tightly controlled and divided up by a largely stable ruling clique, as demonstrated by the 'tandem' power deal struck by Putin and current President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008.

Putin's opponents, fearing he will smother political and economic reforms, have refused to recognize the result, which could allow the former KGB spy to rule Russia for as long as Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, accused of presiding over "the years of stagnation." "I used to love Putin, like any woman who likes a charismatic man. But now I think he is getting senile. Nobody can stay in power forever," Vasilisa Maslova, 35, who works in the fashion trade, said during the opposition rally.

"Voting yesterday, I felt like I was choosing the least dirty toilet in a crowded train station." Protesters in Moscow held up banners reading "12 more years - no thanks" and "We need a Russian president, not a leader for life."

JAILED TYCOON

In a conciliatory move, Putin invited his defeated presidential rivals to talks, although Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov did not attend. The Kremlin also took steps that appeared intended to try to take the sting out of the protests which began over the December 4 poll won by Putin's United Russia party.

Medvedev, who will stay in office until early May, told the prosecutor general to study the legality of 32 criminal cases including the jailing of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky, who headed what was Russia's biggest oil company, Yukos, and was once the country's richest man, was arrested in 2003 and jailed on tax evasion and fraud charges after showing political ambitions and falling out with Putin.

The Kremlin said Medvedev had also told the justice minister to explain why Russia had refused to register a liberal opposition group, PARNAS, which has been barred from elections. The order followed a meeting last month at which opposition leaders handed Medvedev a list of people they regard as political prisoners and called for political reforms.

Medvedev's initiatives "have only one goal: To at least somehow lower the scale of dismay and protest that continues to surge in society," Zyuganov said.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Grove, Maria Tsvetkova and Jennifer Rankin, writing by Timothy Heritage and Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Tim Pearce)

[fluistulkn]

Russian protesters fear Putin will get tough





By Timothy Heritage
MOSCOW | Tue Mar 6, 2012 2:22pm EST

(Reuters) - Russia's opposition said on Tuesday they feared Vladimir Putin had decided to use force to smother their protests after riot police detained hundreds of demonstrators challenging his presidential election victory. After three months of peaceful anti-Putin protests, police hauled away more than 500 people, including opposition leaders, who attended unsanctioned protests in Moscow and St Petersburg on Monday or refused to leave after a rally that was permitted.

The police intervention sent a clear signal that Putin is losing patience with opponents demanding more democracy, openness and political reforms, and will crack down if they step out of line. "Fear of his own people, the animal fear of losing power, and a reliance on the police baton - this is what we are seeing," Boris Nemtsov, a liberal opposition leader, wrote in a blog.

Novelist Boris Akunin, who has helped organize the protests, said he no longer believed the next rally - planned for Saturday - could pass off without trouble. "It is absolutely clear that the period of peaceful rallies and marches is over. I see no need to organize any march on March 10 because it will lead to a clear display of aggression by the authorities," he said.

The police said they had acted in accordance with the law and Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, defended the intervention. "The opposition action consisted of two parts, legal and illegal. In both cases, the police acted with the highest professionalism and acted legitimately and effectively, within the competence of the law," he said.

After four years as prime minister, Putin returned to the presidency after capturing almost 64 percent of the votes in Sunday's election. He was president from 2000 to 2008. The restraint shown by many officers, even as they bundled protesters into vans, suggested that Putin is determined not to give his critics the chance to depict him as a dictator ready to suppress any challenge to his authority.

Witnesses said that although some protesters were hurt, and one said her arm had been broken, police seemed intent on avoiding casualties at the main protest on Moscow's Pushkin Square, often the scene of Soviet-era dissident protests. But reporters said police used tougher tactics against a group who tried to protest at Lubyanka Square, in front of the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

Protesters were also dragged roughly away in St Petersburg, Putin's home town. Foreign investors are worried that clashes could break out between police and protesters, undermining the investment climate and denting prospects for reforms which they say are needed to reduce Russia's reliance on energy exports.

Russian stocks suffered their biggest daily fall in three months on Tuesday after ratings agency Fitch warned of the dangers of confrontation. Both the main dollar-based and rouble-traded stock indexes fell by more than 3 percent.

ALLEGATIONS OF FRAUD

The pattern appears clear: Putin will allow a few isolated protests, the place and time of which is agreed with the authorities, as a safety valve for disillusionment among mainly urban demonstrators with his 12-year domination of Russia. He could also offer some conciliatory gestures to appease the opposition.

In one such move, the Kremlin has ordered a review of 32 criminal cases including the jailing of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the refusal to register a liberal opposition group which has been barred from elections. But Putin, a former KGB spy, will do his utmost to prevent what he regards as more radical protesters undermining his return to the Kremlin for a third term as president. Dissent will be dealt with forcefully.

"We saw fear in the eyes of the dictator. We saw weakness. We saw a man who is unsure of himself," Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader, told the rally at Pushkin Square after Putin shed a tear in his victory speech on Sunday. "Has war begun? Why have they brought troops into the centre of our capital? Why the riot police? Who does he want to wage war with? Who is he protecting himself against?"

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said on Twitter that the arrests were troubling and freedom of assembly and speech were universal values. This earned him a rebuke from Russia's Foreign Ministry in a tweeted reply. It said the Russian police had shown far more restraint than U.S. officers clearing anti-capitalist protesters from sites in the United States.

The United States has called for an independent and credible investigation into all allegations of voting irregularities in the election. Several European countries have also signaled their concern over the allegations of cheating but at the same time underlined a desire to keep working with Russia.

International monitors said there had been some improvements from a parliamentary poll on December 4 which observers said was marred by irregularities, but the vote was still unfair and heavily skewed to favour Putin. Russia's Foreign Ministry said the observers' report was balanced overall but it took issue with several criticisms, although it did not say what they were.

Many Russians have lost hope of elections being fair and Putin introducing change. "I used to love Putin, like any woman who likes a charismatic man. But now I think he is getting senile. Nobody can stay in power forever," Vasilisa Maslova, 35, who works in the fashion trade, said at Pushkin Square.

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly, Alissa de Carbonnel and Thomas Grove Editing by Douglas Busvine, Elizabeth Piper and Robert Woodward)