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Moscow lawmakers leave duma in protest over alleged election fraud
Oct 14, 2009, 14:00 GMT
Moscow - Russia's opposition lawmakers on Wednesday staged a walkout from the State Duma to protest alleged fraud in Sunday's local elections in Moscow and elsewhere in the country.
Only lawmakers from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, which won an overwhelming majority of seats in Sunday's election, remained in the meeting of the lower house of parliament.
The protesting lawmakers, representing the duma's three other factions, which are not usually critical of the Kremlin, called on President Dmitry Medvedev to hold crisis talks, the Interfax news agency reported.
The Fair Russia party, the Nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and Communist party said the duma meeting would resume once the dispute over the election is settled.
The incumbent United Russia won 32 of the 35 seats in Moscow's duma, according to the electoral commission. The Communist party, with 13.3 per cent of the vote, was the only other party to make it into the duma.
United Russia also secured a countrywide two-thirds majority in the election that drew 30 million voters from 75 municipalities.
Central Election Commission chairman Vladimir Churov and Medvedev praised the electoral process.
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