 |
| A rally in Moscow on Saturday against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the Russian leader to quit power. (AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev) |
Related
articles
- Russians Should Skip Protest Due to Cold: Chief Doctor
- After Briefly Allowing Media Freedom, Putin Turns the Screws Again
- Russia Allows New Mass Anti-Putin Protest: Official
- US Ambassador Parries Russian Attacks
- Russian Stars Launch ‘Voters’ League’ to Fight Fraud
Moscow. The
budding movement against Vladimir Putin’s grip on power has kept its momentum a
month ahead of Russia’s presidential polls after its latest rally repeated the
success of previous protests despite freezing temperatures, analysts said.
Bundled up
in down jackets, sheepskin coats and felt boots, protesters turned up on
Saturday for their third rally since fraud-tainted December elections in
defiance of government calls to ignore the protest and after a long New Year’s
break.
“It is
important that the number of people is not going down despite the cold and the
fact that this is already their third rally,” said Maria Lipman, editor at the
US-funded Pro et Contra journal. “People’s convictions are only growing
stronger.”
Incensed by
widespread claims of fraud in December’s parliamentary elections, tens of
thousands of people gathered in Moscow on Dec. 10 and Dec. 24 in the largest
protests of Putin’s 12-year rule as president and prime minister.
The
organizers had worried that the protest movement was in danger of fizzling out
and popular anger over claims of fraud may subside two months after the
parliamentary polls.
But they
said the turnout exceeded expectations, pledging to hold a smaller protest
before the March 4 presidential election and another mass rally soon after it.
“There is
absolutely no feeling that the protest movement is fizzling out,” said Sergei
Parkhomenko, one of the organizers. “The Kremlin had hoped it would go away,
but it’s not going away. It will continue after elections.”
While
police put the number of protesters at the anti-Putin rally at Bolotnaya Square
called through social networks at around 36,000, the organizers said some
120,000 people turned up.
Authorities
made a series of calls to discourage Russians from joining the protest and
staged a rival rally, bussing scores of ordinary Russians to the Poklonnaya
Gora War Memorial Park.
Police said
138,000 were in attendance, but a correspondent at the scene said the numbers
appeared to have been exaggerated.
Complaints
multiplied ahead of the pro-Putin rally, organized by authorities and
Kremlin-friendly trade unions, that employees of state companies were offered
cash incentives or even ordered to attend the protest.
A nurse
from a hospital in the Moscow suburb of Zelenograd said colleagues were offered
3,000 rubles ($100) to attend the pro-Putin rally and 15 agreed to go.
Analysts
said authorities, who wanted to show that Putin’s backers far outnumbered
Putin’s opponents, risked alienating sincere supporters.
“This
protest will come back to haunt him,” said Yuliy Nisnevich, a political science
professor at the Higher School of Economics. “People were being pressured,
humiliated and they will hold a grudge,” he continued, adding that many of
those who attended the pro-Putin rally might later join the opposite camp.
Nikolai
Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, noted that by pulling out all
the stops to stage the pro-Putin protest, authorities were sending a signal
that a rally was a “way to solve political problems.”
“Authorities
are rocking the boat themselves,” he said.
Observers
stressed that the nascent protest movement should ramp up its efforts and
mobilize greater numbers if it hoped to mount a serious challenge to Putin.
“All these
rallies, they are not a wave yet but a forerunner,” Nisnevich said. “There’s no
energy yet that will wash away this regime.”
Grigory
Yavlinsky of the liberal Yabloko party, who was disqualified on procedural
grounds from standing in the presidential elections, told the protest rally
that Putin’s biggest test would come after the ballot.
“Life does
not end on March 4 or even 5,” he said to cheers from the crowds. “Everything
is just beginning. We will never retreat.”
Agence France-Presse
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.