Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Moscow Saturday to press demands for new parliamentary elections and wholesale liberalizing reform in Russia, turning the temperature up on Vladimir Putin and his plans to return to the Kremlin, RIA Novosti reports.
Police put the number of protesters within the space authorized for the rally at 29,000 but a far larger crowd was massed behind a long line of metal detectors set up on the street as would-be participants were screened through them one by one. Rally organizers and RIA Novosti correspondents on the scene estimated the turnout number at several times higher than the police figure. Opposition leaders said 120,000 came to protest.
Similar rallies were held in all major cities of Russia.
As the demonstration swelled, the Kremlin moved to respond in real time, with a spokeswoman for President Dmitry Medvedev announcing that reforms to ease restrictions on political parties could be enacted quickly.
The protesters at the massive rally in central Moscow adopted a resolution on Saturday calling for new and fair elections and open registration for all opposition parties by February 2012.
Other demands include the immediate release of all "political prisoners," referring to political activists detained during protest actions, the annulment of the December 4 parliamentary election results, which they claim were rigged in favor of the ruling United Russia party, the resignation of Central Electoral Commission chief Vladimir Churov, the prosecution of all those involved in ballot stuffing and a vote against presidential hopeful Putin next March.
However, PM's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with AFP news agency on Sunday after the biggest opposition protest in Moscow that Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin still enjoys the support of the majority of Russians. "Putin still has the support of a majority. And we should treat the opinion of a majority with respect," Peskov was quoted by AFP as saying.
Peskov also said that Putin was "beyond competition" as a candidate in the 2012 presidential polls, adding that protesters who had taken to the streets represented a minority of Russian citizens.
Vladimir Burmatov, a member of the United Russia faction in the lower house of parliament and deputy chairman of the State Duma committee for education, said that "the protest has absolutely no leaders as they do not recognize each other. What can we talk about, if they cannot even agree on how to call their protest movement?" Also, Andrei Isayev, first deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council Presidium, said that the Russian authorities' recent proposals to reform the political system in Russia would cause the wave of protests in Russia to subside.
The ruling United Russia party, led by Putin, won the December 4 State Duma elections, gaining nearly 50 percent, a sharp drop from over 64 percent it enjoyed at the previous election in 2007.
Independent observers and critics said the election to the lower house had been slanted in favor of United Russia and cited incidents of apparent ballot stuffing. Thousands took to the streets to protest the results. The authorities denied that major irregularities occurred, but admitted minor violations, pledging that they will all be investigated.
