Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has said Sunday’s Russian parliamentary election was marred by fraud
and has called for a re-run.”The country’s leaders must admit there were numerous falsifications and
rigging and the results do not reflect the people’s will,” he said.Protesters were planning new rallies for Saturday as arrests in Tuesday’s
crackdown in reached 800 across Russia.Key figures in the protest movement are starting 15-day jail sentences.

State TV channels have ignored the protests, giving coverage only to rallies
in support of the government.

The centre of Moscow saw its biggest protest against the rule of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his allies in years on Monday, when
several thousand people came out to condemn widely reported fraud at Sunday’s parliamentary elections.An attempt to hold a smaller rally on Tuesday was quickly broken up by riot police, while rival rallies by Putin supporters were allowed to proceed.

The big question now is whether the fledgling protest movement can maintain
its momentum, the BBC’s Daniel Sandford reports from Moscow.

While the movement began as a protest against the election results, most of
the slogans have been against Mr Putin, our correspondent adds.

The Russian prime minister, who formally registered on Wednesday to stand in
the March presidential election, has played down losses by his party, United
Russia, which saw its support drop sharply to just under 50% of the vote.

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