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Russian communists say overturning ‘stolen’ election not enough

Electoral commission annuls Putin candidate's win in Primorsky Krai, but communists say their man's victory must be confirmed

OFFICIALS in Russia’s far east have overturned the result of an election the opposition Communist Party (KPRF) says was stolen, but communists poured scorn on their decision to rerun the vote.

With almost 98 per cent of votes counted in Primorsky Krai, KPRF candidate Andrei Ischenko had a 28,000-vote lead over acting governor Andrei Tarasenko of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party when a string of late-declaring precincts declared suspicious 100 per cent votes for Mr Tarasenko.

An outcry from KPRF supporters in the coastal region has led its election commission to annul Mr Tarasenko’s victory and call another vote in December.

But the KPRF says its candidate won and that victory should be recognised, adding that the acting governor cannot remain in his post.

KPRF general secretary Gennady Zyuganov said: “We insist that the president dismiss Andrei Tarasenko. He cannot hold elections.”

He said the party was preparing 12 bills for parliament to “repair” the electoral system, including a requirement for candidates to take part in debates.

And he called for “criminal proceedings” against the vote-riggers and a proper investigation, noting that similar near-wins had been suspiciously denied the communists elsewhere, including Irkutsk.

“Someone promised these scoundrels and criminals patronage and cover,” he warned.

The party’s head of protest actions, Vladimir Kashin, called for further mass rallies in regional capital Vladivostok to “return the victory that was stolen from us.”

Saturday would see KPRF-organised demonstrations across Russia, he said, highlighting the stolen election, the Putin government’s loathed pension age rise and the “unfair judicial sentence against Vladimir Bessonov,” a former communist MP sentenced to jail for allegedly attacking two police officers, who cut the sound while he was addressing an unauthorised rally. Mr Bessonov is currently in hiding.

Party central committee member Sergei Obukhov said the upsurge in communist support since the pensions row began showed voters were recognising the KPRF as the “only consistent opposition party.”

He added: “There is no other force in society other than the Communist Party that consistently and aggressively defends your rights. All the other parties have merged and are blowing into the dudu [a wind instrument] of United Russia.”

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