Gorbachev calls for new Russian elections

From Alla Eshchenko, CNN

December 7, 2011 -- Updated 1354 GMT (2154 HKT)

Demonstrators, police clash in Russia

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Gorbachev calls elections unfair, a Russian report says
• Demonstrators protest election results, which returned Vladimir Putin's party to power
• At least 250 people were arrested Tuesday, but thousands vow to keep on
• International observers say opposition parties were barred from running

Moscow (CNN) -- Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, called Wednesday for new parliamentary elections in Russia over concerns about vote fraud.

"Mikhail Gorbachev is very concerned about how the situation in Russia is developing," spokesman Pavel Palezhchenko told CNN. "People don't believe that the will of the people is reflected in the results."
He confirmed a report by the Russian news agency Interfax, which quoted the former premier as saying the elections were unfair and new elections were needed.
Demonstrators have been protesting against what they describe as electoral fraud in Sunday's national vote, which kept Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party in power but significantly decreased the number of seats it holds in Parliament.
Opponents of Putin vowed Wednesday to continue protesting the election results despite the arrests of at least 250 demonstrators Tuesday.
Naerly 14,000 people have already said on Facebook they would demonstrate in Moscow on Saturday, which would be one of the largest opposition protests in the Russian capital in years.
Protest organizers expect about 2,000 people for a demonstration Wednesday, they said.

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Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister turned vocal government opponent, told CNN he was among those detained at a rally.
Putin's United Russia party held a separate demonstration. Police said there were about 8,000 people there.
Tuesday's anti-Putin protests drew much smaller crowds than a similar rally in Moscow Monday, where thousands of demonstrators turned out for an event state news agency RIA Novosti described as the largest opposition demonstration in years.
Protesters Tuesday were met with a firm response from security forces, who dispersed many and made arrests.
But some analysts said the presence of protesters was a significant sign that could prove a turning point in Russian politics.
"This isn't a surprise that the party got fewer votes. I think the real surprise are the number of people who went out on the street," said Toby Gati, a senior international adviser at the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld firm.
As simmering anger over allegations of official corruption and economic stagnation appear to be boiling over. Putin has promised to make changes, including reshuffling his Cabinet. He said the losses his party suffered in Sunday's elections were inevitable.

"They are unavoidable for any political power, especially a political power that has held the responsibility for the state of a country for some time," he said after results were announced.
One observer said Sunday's election results, which left United Russia with a slim majority in the 450-seat house, signal that the leader's grip on power was weakening.
"Whatever else they reveal, Sunday's results undercut the image, common in the West, of Putin's regime as an effective authoritarian state," Daniel Treisman, professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a column for CNN. "In fact, it is a regime that cannot even steal an election decisively."
But Matthew Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment, cautioned that this week's protests were fueled by the frustrations of a "liberal fringe," not the majority of the population.
"The bulk of Russians... still have negative memories of the last time a government went down. They're not terribly interested in feeding chaos," he said. "It's not the Arab Spring on the streets of Moscow."
A preliminary report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Sunday's election said some political parties had been prevented from running and the vote was "slanted in favor of the ruling party."
A draft report by the organization's election-observer mission details alleged attempts to stuff ballot boxes, manipulate voter lists and harass election monitors. The group, which monitors and promotes democracy and human rights, cited the lack of an independent body running the election or impartial news media.
And there was "undue interference of state authorities" in the vote, the 56-nation organization said in a statement.
Putin's United Russia party will have 238 seats, down from more than 300 in the outgoing Parliament, or Duma, Central Election Commission head Vladimir Churov announced, with 99.99% of ballots counted. Meanwhile, the Communist Party will have 92 seats, A Just Russia will have 64, and the Liberal Democrats will have 56, Churov said.