Russians rally vs Putin, election fraud

Tens of thousands of Muscovites thronged to a square across the river from the Kremlin on Saturday to protest alleged electoral fraud and urge an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule, demands repeated at other rallies across this vast country in the largest public show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia.               

The demonstrations come three months before Putin, who was president in 2000-2008 and effectively remained the country's leader while prime minister, is to seek a third presidential term. The massive outpouring of public anger challenges his image, supported by state-controlled TV channels, as a man backed by the majority of Russians.              

Protests took place in more than 50 other cities from the Pacific Coast to the southwest, including a large demonstration estimated by police at 7,000 people in St. Petersburg.        

Less than 100 demonstrators were reported arrested nationwide, far fewer than the hundreds taken into custody at smaller protests in the first days after the Dec. 4 national election.

Police, who normally crack down fast and hard on any unauthorized gathering, even allowed a few hundred leftist radicals to conduct an unsanctioned protest on Moscow's Revolution Square just outside the Red Square.       

AP