Russian President Orders Investigation Into Election Fraud Allegations

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the government to investigate allegations of voter fraud in last week's parliamentary elections, after tens of thousands of Russians protested against the results of the vote held on December 4.

The announcement came a day after tens of thousands of protesters in Moscow and dozens of other cities demanded the election results be annulled.

According to Russian press, on Facebook, Mr. Medvedev explained that he did not agree with the protesters' banners or statements.

The Russian president believes that the election results - in which the United Russia party came in first - reflect the political choices in Russian society.

However, the Russian President has ordered an investigation to collect information from polling stations to ensure that electoral laws were respected in last week's vote for the lower house of parliament.

The massive protest on December 10 attracted at least 10,000 people in Saint Petersburg and thousands more in other cities, from Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.

In Moscow alone, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that 25,000 people responded to the movement, but according to independent sources, the number of participants was between 50,000 and 80,000.

Military and police were deployed to guard the area around the protest. Most of the protests were peaceful.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called on protesters protesting the results of the Duma elections to act legally and stressed that reports of electoral violations should be thoroughly investigated.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Prague after a meeting with his Czech counterpart on December 8, President Vaclav Klaus, the head of state of Russia, said: “According to Russian law, protesters can gather in permitted places. But the situation after the election shows that many people have lost their way.”

He called on Russians to remain calm during the investigation and said protests were allowed as long as they were conducted within the law.

“Reports of election fraud need to be thoroughly investigated,” he added.

The Russian electoral system is “not perfect,” the Russian president said, but he believed the election results — which saw United Russia come in first — reflected political choices in Russian society and that political observers agreed the elections were well organized.

According to Dan Tri