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James

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Re: Putin decries western meddling

James wrote:

President Vladimir Putin today accused the west of meddling in Russia's forthcoming elections and said that the country's opposition was conspiring to grab power via an orange-style revolution.

In a rally ahead of Russia's parliamentary elections next week, Putin said that the country's enemies were trying to weaken it. They were also attempting to turn the clock back to the corrupt, oligarchic 1990s, he said.

"Unfortunately there are those people in our country who still slink through foreign embassies ... who count on the support of foreign funds and governments but not the support of their own people," Putin told a crowd of cheering supporters today at Moscow's Luzhniki sports stadium.

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He added: "There are those confronting us, who do not want us to carry out our plans because they have ... a different view of Russia. They need a weak and feeble state. They need a disorganised and disorientated society ... so that they can carry out their dirty tricks behind its back."

In reality Russia's democratic opposition parties have no hope of winning seats in the December 2 elections. Today, however, Putin claimed they wanted to topple Russia's government by emulating street protests in Georgia and Ukraine.

"They are going to take to the streets. They have learned from western experts and have received some training in neighbouring [former Soviet] republics. Now they are going to start provocations here," the ex-KGB officer said.

Today's early afternoon rally included Soviet-era songs, a lot of flag-waving and a giant poster with the words: "Putin's victory is victory for Russia!"

The event was organised by the For Putin movement, an allegedly spontaneous grassroots and pan-Russian organisation that aims to persuade the president to stay in power after his second term ends next year.

There was speculation ahead of the rally that he might use the event to announce his resignation. But Putin, dressed in a black polo neck, revealed nothing about his own plans once he is forced to retire as president in May 2008.

His splenetic outburst was directed at Russia's small liberal opposition and the Communists. The Other Russia, a coalition led by the former chess champion Gary Kasparov, is planning demonstrations this weekend in Moscow and St Petersburg.

The Kremlin has already prevented The Other Russia from contesting the December 2 poll. Today the party said police had arrested dozens of its activists. Several were sitting in a Moscow flat while police waited outside, a spokesman added.

"I'm still at home. The police turned up at my flat at 6am. I didn't let them in. They are now hanging around outside in a big black car," Alexey Sochnev, an activist who edits the Other Russia website, told the Guardian. He added: "They interrogated my mother when she went shopping and took away her phone."

The latest polls suggest that only two parties are certain to win seats in the new State Duma - Putin's United Russia and the Communists. Numerous Kremlin changes to the electoral laws mean that Russia's western-orientated reform parties will not muster enough votes to pass a new 7% barrier.

Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said the Kremlin was returning Russia to a "single party ruling system". It was similar to the Communist party system in the Soviet Union, he said. "The intention is to preserve President Putin's rule for life," he added.

Sergei Kovalyov, Yabloko's deputy leader, added that Putin had transformed Russia into what he called "an imitation of democracy". Like the Soviet Union the country was increasingly "totalitarian" in character, he noted.

"The Soviet ideology and Soviet system are being modified ... there is no return to the gulags. The authorities have managed to ensure absolute obedience based solely on the fear that has remained since the Soviet era," he said.

Today's US-style rally was the biggest demonstration of public support for Putin since Russia's lacklustre election campaign got underway earlier this month. The Kremlin refused to invite most foreign media - including the Guardian - to the event.

In early October, Putin announced that he was placing his name at the top of United Russia's federal party list - a move designed to boost the party's popularity ahead of next week's vote. Putin is certain to win a seat in parliament but unlikely to take it up, analysts say.

One leading Kremlin-connected analyst said that he expected there to be three centres of power in Russia once Putin departs office. "Power will be divided between Putin, who will be national leader, the president and prime minister," Sergei Markov predicted.