Tens of thousands of people yesterday filled an avenue in Moscow to protest against the alleged rigging of parliamentary polls, in a new challenge to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s authority.
Clutching white balloons and banners with the slogan “For Free Elections,” the protesters thronged Sakharov Avenue, symbolically named after the Nobel-winning dissident Andrei Sakharov who for years defied the former USSR.
Police said 29,000 had turned out for the Moscow rally, but organizers said 120,000 people had entirely filled to bursting point Sakharov Avenue, which was closed off to traffic for the protest.
PHOTO: AFP
The Associated Press reported the protesters had packed the avenue, which it said could hold nearly 100,000 people.
The protest increases the pressure on Putin to implement radical changes in Russia’s tightly controlled political system as he plans to return to the presidency in March elections after his four-year stint as prime minister.
Some protesters held up pictures of Putin with a giant condom draped over his head in the style of an Egyptian pharaoh, in reference to his sneering dismissal of the rallies as resembling an anti-AIDS campaign.
In a hugely provocative speech, blogger Alexei Navalny, who has emerged as one of the protest leaders, vowed that 1 million people would attend the next rally to demand new parliamentary elections.
“I see enough people here to take the White House [the seat of the Russian government] right now, but we are peaceful people and we will not do that — for the moment,” he said. “We know what we will do. We will go out onto the street until they give back what is ours. Next time, we will bring 1 million people onto the streets of Moscow.”
“We do not want to scare anyone, but I promise you that next year, the leaders will change and power will belong to those to whom it should belong. Power will belong to the people,” Navalny said to cheers.
Amid a festive atmosphere despite sub-zero temperatures, loudspeakers played the legendary song of Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi We Want Change!
A banner held up by a group of protesters said: “We woke up and this is only the beginning.”
Incensed by claims of wholesale violations in the polls that handed a reduced majority to Putin’s United Russia party, tens of thousands of people already took to the streets across Russia on Dec. 10.
These protests are the biggest show of public anger in Russia since the chaotic 1990s and the first sign of a growing challenge to Putin’s 12-year domination of the country.
Former Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin for the first time joined the opposition protest in Moscow and warned that Russia risked a new revolution if there was no dialogue between protesters and the Kremlin.
“There needs to be a platform for dialogue, otherwise there will be a revolution and we lose the chance that we have today for a peaceful transformation” of Russia, he said.
The Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, 80, who has been virulently critical of the elections, had been considering attending, but had not appeared as of press time.
The mass protests have been sanctioned by the authorities, in a major turnaround by the police, who arrested hundreds of people who took part in demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of the elections.
In an unexpected boost to the protesters, an advisory Kremlin rights panel said overnight the new parliament had been discredited by the accusations of fraud and fresh elections should be called.
“This discredits the electoral system and the lower house of parliament and ... creates a real threat to the Russian state,” it said in a statement, calling for the resignation of Russian Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov.
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
NEXT GENERATION: The four plants in the Central Taiwan Science Park, designated Fab 25, would consist of four 1.4-nanometer wafer manufacturing plants, TSMC said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to begin construction of four new plants later this year, with the aim to officially launch production of 2-nanometer semiconductor wafers by late 2028, Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau director-general Hsu Maw-shin (許茂新) said. Hsu made the announcement at an event on Friday evening celebrating the Central Taiwan Science Park’s 22nd anniversary. The second phase of the park’s expansion would commence with the initial construction of water detention ponds and other structures aimed at soil and water conservation, Hsu said. TSMC has officially leased the land, with the Central Taiwan Science Park having handed over the
‘REALISTIC’ APPROACH: The ministry said all the exercises were scenario-based and unscripted to better prepare personnel for real threats and unexpected developments The army’s 21st Artillery Command conducted a short-range air defense drill in Taoyuan yesterday as part of the Han Kuang exercises, using the indigenous Sky Sword II (陸射劍二) missile system for the first time in the exercises. The armed forces have been conducting a series of live-fire and defense drills across multiple regions, simulating responses to a full-scale assault by Chinese forces, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Sky Sword II missile system was rapidly deployed and combat-ready within 15 minutes to defend Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in a simulated attack, the ministry said. A three-person crew completed setup and
RSS