Russian poll protests continue

Protests over alleged mass electoral fraud at the December 4 parliamentary elections continued in Moscow on Saturday, as more than a thousand people attended a rally near the Kremlin, RIA Novosti reports.

Up to 1,500 people gathered on Bolotnaya Square on Saturday, police said. Saturday’s sanctioned rally was organized by the pro-democracy Yabloko party. Yabloko, led by its first leader and co-founder, Grigory Yavlinsky, failed to make the State Duma’s 5-percent threshold.

Smaller rallies were took place in other cities, including Russia’s westernmost enclave of Kaliningrad and the Siberian city of Irkutsk, where more than 500 people braved temperatures of minus 20C.

A new For Fair Elections rally has been called for December 24. More than 25,000 people have signed up to a Facebook page announcing the rally.