Gorbachev calls for poll re-run

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday called for Russia’s elections to be re-run due to fraud, as the opposition vowed new rallies contesting the results despite mass arrests.

Police threw a huge security cordon around the square in central Moscow which saw the latest protest on Tuesday night to prevent a new rally, as the opposition called for a mass gathering near the Kremlin on Saturday.

A handful of arrests were reported in Moscow yesterday as police cordoned off central squares, while some 70 people were detained in a third night of rallies in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg.

The wave of protests and a loss of support in the parliamentary elections have provided Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with an unexpected challenge as he prepares to return to the Kremlin in 2012 presidential polls.

Amid growing international alarm over the claims of vote rigging, Mr Gorbachev said the results of Sunday’s poll should be invalidated and new elections held due to “numerous falsifications and rigging.”

“The results do not reflect the will of the people,” Mr Gorbachev, president when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, told the Interfax news agency.

“Therefore I think they (Russia’s leaders) can only take one decision – annul the results of the election and hold new ones.”

Mr Putin’s United Russia party won the polls with a reduced majority, amid signs his once-invincible popularity might be waning. The opposition says his party’s performance would have been even worse in free elections, with both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressing “serious concern”.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel yesterday also called on Russia to clear up the reports of violations and to allow protesters to have their say on the streets.

Germany “expects that Russia will live up to its democratic obligations as a constitutional state,” Mrs Merkel said through a spokesman.