Putin Crowned Dictator For Life in Commie Russia

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314562,00.html

Vladimir Putin's Kremlin Party Wins More Than 60 Percent of Vote in

Elections; U.S. Urges Probe

Monday, December 03, 2007

MOSCOW - Vladimir Putin's party won a crushing victory in parliamentary

elections Sunday, paving the way for the authoritarian leader to remain in

control even after he steps down as president.

The vote followed a tense Kremlin campaign that relied on a combination of

persuasion and intimidation to ensure victory for the United Russia party

and for Putin, who has used a flood of oil revenues to move his country into

a more assertive position on the global stage.

"The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is the national

leader, that the people support his course, and this course will continue,"

party leader and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov said after exit polls were

announced.

Several opposition leaders accused the Kremlin of rigging the vote, and the

Bush administration called for a probe into voting irregularities. Communist

Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called the election "the most irresponsible

and dirty" in the post-Soviet era and party officials vowed to challenge the

results.

With ballots from nearly 92 percent of precincts counted, United Russia was

leading with 63.2 percent, while the Communists trailed with 11.7 percent,

the Central Election Commission said.

The Kremlin portrayed the election as a plebiscite on Putin's nearly eight

years as president - with the promise that a major victory would allow him

somehow to remain leader after his second term ends next year.

Putin is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third consecutive

term, but he clearly wants to stay in power. A movement has sprung up in

recent weeks to urge him to become a "national leader," though what duties

and powers that would entail are unclear.

Pollsters said United Russia's performance would give it an overwhelming

majority of 306 seats in the 450-seat State Duma, or lower house. The

Communists would have 57 seats.

Two other pro-Kremlin parties - the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and

populist Just Russia - also appeared to have made it into parliament, with

8.4 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

One Liberal Democratic Party deputy will be Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB

officer and chief suspect in the poisoning death of Kremlin critic Alexander

Litvinenko in London last year. Russia has refused to hand Lugovoi over to

Britain, and the Duma seat provides him with immunity from prosecution.

No other parties passed the 7 percent threshold for gaining seats in the

legislature. Both opposition liberal parties were shut out, predicted to win

no more than 2 or 3 percent of the vote each.

Many Russians complained Sunday about being pressured to cast their ballots,

with teachers, doctors and others saying they had been ordered by their

bosses to vote at their workplaces.

"People are being forced and threatened to vote; otherwise they won't get

their salaries or pensions," said Boris Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union

of Right Forces party.a

Dozens of voters reported being paid to cast ballots for United Russia, said

Alexander Kynev, a political expert with election monitoring group Golos. In

the town of Pestovo in the western Novgorod region, voters complained they

were given ballots already filled out for United Russia, he said.

In Chechnya, where turnout was over 99 percent, witnesses reported seeing

election authorities filling out and casting voter ballots in the suburbs of

the regional capital, Grozny.

There was a tense, subdued mood at some polling stations. Yelena, a

32-year-old manager in St. Petersburg, refused to give her last name out of

fear of official retaliation for voting for the liberal Yabloko party.

"We live in a country with an absence of democracy and freedom of speech,"

she said.

Many voters were reluctant to discuss their vote - a shift since the late

1980s, when Russians complained loudly about their government. One elderly

woman, a veteran of a defense research institute, refused to give her name

and only acknowledged that she had voted for Yabloko when she was certain no

one else was listening. The authorities, she said, would not let Yabloko win

seats.

"That's why we have about 300 fools, I'm sorry to say, in our Duma," she

said. "And I don't believe Putin: He is an ordinary man, we must not give

him absolute power."

The Kremlin appeared determined to engineer a resounding victory. But Putin,

credited with rebuilding Russia after the poverty and uncertainty of the

1990s, has support from many Russians.

"Today everything is clear and stable in life. The president's words always

coincide with what he does. As for the other candidates we don't know yet

where they would take us to," said Raisa Tretyakova, a 61-year-old pensioner

in St. Petersburg.

The Bush administration Sunday called on Russia to investigate claims the

vote was manipulated.

"In the run-up to election day, we expressed our concern regarding the use

of state administrative resources in support of United Russia, the bias of

the state-owned or influenced media in favor of United Russia, intimidation

of political opposition, and the lack of equal opportunity encountered by

opposition candidates and parties," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the

National Security Council.

Turnout was about 62 percent Sunday, the Central Elections Commission said,

up from 56 percent in the last parliamentary elections four years ago.

All seats will be awarded according to the percentage of the vote each party

receives; in previous elections, half the seats were chosen among candidates

contesting a specific district, allowing a few mavericks to get in. About

109 million people are eligible to vote.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, regarded in the

West as the most authoritative election monitor, canceled plans to send

observers.

Putin claimed the pullout was instigated by the United States to discredit

the elections. But the OSCE said Russia delayed granting visas for so long

that the organization would have been unable to meaningfully assess election

preparations.