Russians voted on Sunday in parliamentary polls seen as a test of Vladimir Putin’s personal authority ahead of a planned return to the presidency, and an electoral watchdog complained of ‘massive cyber attacks’ on a website alleging violations. Putin remains by far the most popular politician in the country but there are some signs Russians may be wearying of his cultivated strong man image. The 59-year-old ex-spy looked stern and said only that he hoped for good results for his United Russia party as he walked past supporters to vote in Moscow.
“I will vote for Putin. Everything he gets involved in, he manages well,” Father Vasily, 61, a bespectacled and white-bearded monk from a nearby monastery said. “It’s too early for a new generation. They will be in charge another 20 years. We are Russians, we are Asians, we need a strong leadership.”
A Western-financed electoral watchdog and two liberal media outlets said their sites had been shut down by hackers intent on silencing allegations of violations. Sites belonging to the Ekho Moskvy radio station, online news portal Slon.ru and the watchdog Golos went down at around 8.00am.
“Massive cyber attacks are taking place on the sites of Golos and the map showing violations,” Golos said on twitter.
Golos said it was excluded from several polling booths in the Siberian Tomsk region. Moscow prosecutors launched an investigation last week into Golos’ activities after lawmakers objected to its Western financing.
Washington said it was concerned by “a pattern of harassment” against the watchdog. Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov wrote on Twitter: “It is obvious the election day attack on the (radio) site is part of an attempt to prevent publishing information about violations.”
President Dmitry Medvedev, who is stepping aside in March so that Putin can return to the presidency, has dismissed talk of electoral fraud. Neither the general prosecutor’s office nor the Central Election Commission could be reached for comment.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, voting at a cultural centre decked with Soviet-style hammer and sickle flags, said there appeared to be election violations in several of Russia’s 93 regions spanning 9,000 Km (5,600 miles).
“I just spoke to our people in the Siberia and the Far East and the situation is very worrying,” he said.
Polls show Putin’s party is likely to win a majority but less than the 315 seats it currently has in the 450-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Duma.
If Putin’s party gets less than two-thirds of seats, it would be stripped of its so called constitutional majority which allows it to change the constitution and even approve the impeachment of the president.
Independent Russian vote monitor Golos defiantly exposed violations in Sunday’s parliamentary polls despite being publicly vilified by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and having its website attacked.
Within the space of a week, the group has seen itself compared by Putin to Judas Iscariot, and been the subject of a smear documentary on pro-Kremlin television.
On election day, its “Map of Violations” website which would have allowed Russians to see where abuses were most concentrated in the country, was down due to a cyber attack while its own email systems were paralysed.
Yet still it carried on chronicling violations, with a telephone hotline and observers deployed in polling stations in 40 regions to watch for fraud.
