The Russian opposition plans to take to the streets on the State Duma elections on December 4, despite the prohibitions of the authorities, Novye Izvestiya writes. In addition, hundreds of defrauded real estate investors will gather at an opposition rally in Red Square that has not been authorised by the authorities. Although it is difficult to imagine that the event will be held on the scheduled scenario. Moscow police have already announced that they are ready to stop all the provocations in the Russian capital on December 4, the newspaper said.
Head of the public order maintenance department of the Russian Interior Ministry’s (MVD) main department for Moscow Vyacheslav Kozlov said: “A number of movements and parties have applied to the Moscow mayor’s office with notification about mass rallies, including protest action, on the election day. Elections have not yet passed, and some already want to assess them.” According to Kozlov, the mayor’s office is considering a total of 14 applications for various actions on December 4. He specified that the law does not prohibit mass actions on the election day if they are not devoted to the voting. He at the same time warned that provocations will be suppressed.
According to the newspaper, the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi will be patrolling the streets. As for the opposition actions, the newspaper knows only about three. A gathering “the people against the illegal elections” organised by the Joint Action Committee of the Moscow opposition will be held in Red Square in the afternoon.
Later, closer to the evening, a rally is planned at Triumfalnaya Square, organised by a leader of non-system opposition Eduard Limonov and the Strategy-31 movement. And after the polls close the nationalists intend to gather at Teatralnaya Square for an action “elections without choice.” However, none of these applications has been granted, but this does not stop the opposition members.
“We have submitted a notification, the authorities predictably refused to allow, although their argument that campaigning is forbidden on the election day, is questionable, since our gathering is not intended for electioneering, but only for the expression of our attitude,” one of the organisers of the rally in Red Square, coordinator of the Left Front Sergei Udaltsov told the publication. According to him, the oppositionists will still try to come in the form of civil gathering, without flags. They will carry the evidence that people did not participate in the elections - absentee ballots, unused ballots, or applications requesting for exclusion from the voter lists.
Representatives of the Strategy-31 who still gather at Triumfalnaya Square, despite the authorities’ refusal to authorise their action, also do not intend to refuse from rallying. And the nationalists, having been denied a rally in Teatralnaya Square in front of the monument to Karl Marx, have filed a new application for a picket of 50 people in the same place at the same time.