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#22 - JRL 2007-248 - JRL Home
Yavlinsky: Russia's Elections Rigged

MOSCOW. Dec 3 (Interfax) - Prominent Russian liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky said Sunday's parliamentary elections had been rigged and lashed out against Russia's political system.

"Today's voting has involved serious violations of all articles of the (election) law without exception," Yavlinsky, who heads the Yabloko party, told reporters.

The offenses included "the way (voters') lists were compiled and absentee vote ballots were issued, violations of the regulations concerning the voting day, such as the opening and closure of polling stations, mass-scale refusals to release (voting) reports and expulsion of observers from polling stations," he said.

One more alleged type of offense was putting fake marked ballots in ballot boxes, Yavlinsky said. He said Yabloko deputy leader Sergei Mitrokhin was currently at a polling station in Moscow "where 1,000 ballots have been smuggled in."

Alleged instances of such smuggling "have been recorded have recorded just by ourselves at dozens of polling stations nationwide," Yavlinsky said.

Yavlinsky described Russia's political system as "authoritarian, based on oligarchic clans, corrupt, unaccountable to society and pursuing the sole goal of preserving its dominance at any cost."

In assessing Yabloko's election campaign, he said: "We believe we've done a good job. The country has been able to hear an alternative for the first time in four years.