In a surprise protest, State Duma deputies representing three factions walked out of the parliament Wednesday to denounce weekend elections swept by United Russia.
The deputies with the Communist, Liberal Democratic and Just Russia parties demanded a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, who had endorsed the election results Monday.
The first Duma walkout in nearly a decade put Medvedev in an awkward position. Following the lead of his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, he has never bowed to demands from other politicians. But Medvedev also has adopted a liberal stance recently, publicly calling for more political competition and the inclusion of the opposition in politics. He also warned United Russia this summer that it would not always have a monopoly on power.
Medvedev made no comment about the deputies’ demand for a meeting Wednesday. His spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said the president would not have time to meet with them in the next 10 days, Interfax reported.
Putin, who leads United Russia and was visiting China on Wednesday, called the walkout regrettable and suggested that those unhappy with the election results turn to the courts.
Municipal and regional elections held in 75 of Russia’s 83 regions on Sunday were blatantly rigged in favor of United Russia, rival parties and independent election monitors said. In Moscow, United Russia won 32 of the 35 seats in the City Duma, with the remaining three going to the Communists. The other four competing parties did not clear the 7 percent threshold.
Central Elections Commission head Vladimir Churov refused to comment on the State Duma protest, saying it was “politics,” Interfax reported.
United Russia has 314 deputies in the State Duma, a constitutional majority of more than two-thirds of the seats, and they continued Wednesday’s session without the 136 protesting deputies, hearing reports from Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko and other officials.
Igor Lebedev, head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s faction in the Duma, told The Moscow Times that the walkout was to protest “total falsifications and violations” in favor of United Russia during the elections.
Lebedev said his party, known as LDPR, and the Communists have compiled a list of demands that they want to present to Medvedev personally, including the annulment of Sunday’s results in several regions, the dismissal of many governors, the re-election of the Duma’s speaker and a number of anti-crisis measures for the economy.
“Until the president reacts, we will not return to the hall,” Lebedev said in a telephone interview.
A meeting between Medvedev and the Duma factions was previously scheduled for Oct. 27, Lebedev said, adding that LDPR and the Communists wanted it moved up to an earlier date.
He said LDPR had planned the protest the day before and the other two parties had unexpectedly supported it Wednesday.
Senior Communist officials also demanded a meeting with the president.
LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Communist chief Gennady Zyuganov told reporters that their parties would stage street protests over the elections.
A Just Russia, led by Putin ally and Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, took a more moderate stance, saying its faction would rejoin the Duma’s next session Friday if it received guarantees that “the Duma’s and the country’s leadership listens to the faction’s voice,” faction head Nikolai Levichev said in a statement.
Communists and Just Russia deputies said they walked out of the Duma after United Russia refused to let them take part in compiling the agenda for the day, including time to discuss Sunday’s elections. Oksana Dmitriyeva, a senior Just Russia deputy, said by telephone that her party was outraged with “the uncivilized behavior” of the Duma First Deputy Speaker Oleg Morozov, a deputy with United Russia, who “cut short the speeches of our deputies.”
The Communist Party said in a statement that it was upset with United Russia’s “refusal to hear the opposition’s point of view, which represents the opinion of millions of voters” and “the falsification of the people’s will” in the vote.
State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov called the protest a “populist action deprived of sense,” according to a statement on United Russia’s web site.
Gryzlov urged the boycotters to rejoin the Duma, appealing to their “sense of responsibility before the voters” and saying their return would be “a constructive way to solve the problem.”
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said Wednesday’s developments were a “part of the normal political process.” “You cannot please all political parties — not in any country of the world. But we do understand that our political culture needs to be improved,” Margelov said at talks with a delegation of Canadian senators.
Vladimir Pribylovsky, a political analyst with the Panorama think tank, predicted that the protest would end like a similar boycott in January 2000, when three liberal and centrist factions walked out over a deal between the Duma’s two biggest groups, the Communists and Unity, a pro-government party that evolved into United Russia, to divvy up control of most of the chamber’s posts. The boycotters rejoined the Duma after three weeks, even though they did not receive any additional committee chairmanships.
Liberal opposition politicians agreed that the rebellion would be short-lived.
Alexander Morozov, a political analyst and former spokesman for A Just Russia, said the parties had reacted so sharply because of the previous liberal promises made by Medvedev.
“They never would have acted like this if Putin were the president,” he said.
He said the walkout gave Medvedev a chance to reassess his quick enforcement of Sunday’s elections. “Now these factions have given Medvedev a chance to pronounce a more balanced view of the situation,” Morozov said.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday expressed “concern” about reports of irregularities at the elections and made clear Medvedev ought to respect his own commitment to build a law-abiding state, Reuters reported.
Nikolaus von Twickel and Nabi Abdullaev contributed to this report.