| | Putin plans to rig parliamentary elections, newspapers say  In perhaps the strongest rebuke to date of the government of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, two newspapers Friday accused Putin of rigging parliamentary elections, one of them explicitly.
"The Kremlin is planning to rig the results of Russia's parliamentary elections on Sunday by forcing millions of public sector workers across the country to vote," the British Guardian newspaper said.
"Local administration officials have called in thousands of staff on their day off in an attempt to engineer a massive and inflated victory for President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party," write Luke Harding and Tom Parfitt in Moscow. "Voters are being pressured to vote for United Russia or risk losing their jobs, their accommodation or bonuses, the Guardian has been told in numerous interviews with byudzhetniki (public sector workers), students and ordinary citizens."
They add:
Local administration officials have called in thousands of staff on their day off in an attempt to engineer a massive and inflated victory for President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Voters are being pressured to vote for United Russia or risk losing their jobs, their accommodation or bonuses, the Guardian has been told in numerous interviews with byudzhetniki (public sector workers), students and ordinary citizens.
Doctors, teachers, university deans, students and even workers at psychiatric clinics have been warned they have to vote. Failure to do so will entail serious consequences, they have been told.
Analysts say the pressure is designed to ensure a resounding win for the United Russia party and for Putin, who heads its party list. The victory would give him a public mandate to maintain ultimate power in the country as "National Leader" despite being unable to stand for a third term as president in March.
"We are seeing a new phenomenon where voters are forced to get absentee ballots under threat of being sacked or being denied bonuses," a spokeswoman for Golos, an independent organisation monitoring the elections said. "People are then instructed to vote at their workplace where everything is tightly controlled." The spokesman said the pressure applied to private businesses as well as state-run enterprises.
Read the full Guardian story here.
And while not using the word "rig," today's Washington Post offers a similarly sobering assessment.
"Across Russia, officials loyal to the Kremlin have used unprecedented administrative pressure and harassment to disrupt the electoral campaigns of opposition parties and maximize the vote of United Russia, the party that President Vladimir Putin is leading into Sunday's parliamentary elections," writes the paper's Peter Finn, "according to opposition party members, independent monitors and political analysts."
Campaign workers have been arrested and beaten across Russia. For example, in the Urals city of Perm, workers were detained while attempting to canvass voters. A party organizer was reported beaten up in the Mordovia region. And a candidate for the Yabloko party was shot and killed last week in the southern republic of Dagestan.
Speaking to foreign diplomats in the Kremlin on Wednesday, Putin dismissed the cacophony of complaints from the opposition. "We know the value of real democracy," he said. "And we want to hold honest elections that are as transparent and open as possible, without organizational failures and problems. I am confident that this upcoming election will be of precisely this kind."
But across the country, people tell a different story. Employees and students at state enterprises and institutions, including hospitals and universities, have come under pressure from their bosses and deans to vote for United Russia on Sunday or face retribution, according to activists.
Read the full Post story here.
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