Duma convenes as Moscow braces for major street protest

RUSSIA’S NEW celebrity-studded parliament has convened as Moscow braces itself for another major street protest against the country’s rulers and their allegedly rigged election victory.

The state Duma, or lower house of parliament, met yesterday for the first time after the December 4th general election that saw the ruling United Russia party of prime minister Vladimir Putin suffer a sharp drop in its winning majority and endure a sudden spike in public criticism.

The day after the vote, up to 50,000 people rallied in Moscow to highlight complaints of ballot-stuffing and to protest more broadly against the rule of Mr Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, who intend to swap jobs after presidential elections in March.

The demonstration was the biggest in Moscow and other Russian towns and cities since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, and resulted in the arrest of several leading activists, including Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has quickly become a key opposition figure.

“I’m not afraid, and these 15 days convinced me there is nothing to fear,” Mr Navalny said on his release yesterday. “Let them be afraid instead . . . The party of crooks and thieves is putting forward its chief crook and its chief thief for the presidency. We must vote against him, struggle against him,” he said of Mr Putin and United Russia.

The party won the election with 49 per cent of votes, 15 per cent and 12 million votes less than in the last election in 2007. Mr Putin is still Russia’s most popular politician, but polls suggest his ratings are dropping as people tire of endemic corruption, widespread poverty, and the domination of power by people loyal to the prime minister, including old colleagues from the security services.

In a bid to combat growing public disillusionment with United Russia’s familiar faces, tired slogans and reputation for graft, Mr Putin is seeking to broaden his appeal by attracting the support of well-known figures from outside the political world, including celebrities of all stripes.

Among the new MPs to enter the 450-seat parliament yesterday were ex-world number one tennis player Marat Safin, actress and Playboymodel Maria Kozhevnikova and Nikolai Valuev, a seven-foot former heavyweight boxing champion.

In its first business, the new Duma chose Sergei Naryshkin, an ally of Mr Putin, to be its speaker. He succeeds another Putin loyalist, Boris Gryzlov, who will be remembered for little more than a pronouncement that “the Duma is not a place for discussion”.

Mr Navalny and fellow anti-government activists, meanwhile, urged Russians to attend another major rally planned in Moscow for Christmas Eve, and said the country was entering a dramatic political “thaw”.