Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow has become the center of the opposition movement, where 14,000 people have gathered for protests after the presidential polls of March 4.
The protests are not as massive as the ones on Bolotnaya and Sakharov Squares. The opposition refuses to recognize the election results as fair. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the poll with 63.60% of the vote.
Alexey Zudin, Deputy Director of the Center for Political Conjuncture of Russia, said that Putin’s victory is an utter defeat for an opposition that tried to use the psychological effect of the parliamentary polls in December to weaken Putin’s majority formed in 2000.
Putin’s majority helped realize economic reforms, build a harsh and consistent policy for the economic and regional elites and block non-system opposition from entering politics.
The opposition tried to convince people that only victory in the second round of voting could be fair. But the difference of events in December and March shows that the evaluation was wrong, it was politically committed. Experts were right when they said that the non-system opposition helped Vladimir Putin win, Zudin continues.
The political analyst believes that the opposition is in a desperate situation, it needs to keep face and continue calling the elections unjust. Protests in the center of Moscow yesterday prove the point. The police mobilized additional officers to Pushkinskaya Square, which turned out to be an unnecessary measure. Some of the protesters tried to move to Manezhnaya Square.
The opposition decided to cancel protests in Moscow planned at Arbatskaya Square on March 8-9 and plans a march from Poklonnaya Hill to Novy Arbat on March 10.
Deputy Moscow Mayor Alexander Gorbenko said that the police were following instructions when preventing unsanctioned protests on Pushkinskaya Square. No incidents occurred in Moscow on March 4-5, Interfax reports.
Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the opposition organized protests with legal and illegal elements. The police demonstrated professionalism, legitimacy and efficiency in maintaining order, RIA Novosti reports.
