MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, the reformer who reluctantly presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, has called for Russia’s recent fraud-tainted general election to be rerun and said he was ashamed of prime minister Vladimir Putin’s reaction to anti-government protests.
Organisers of a protest planned for Moscow today hope Mr Gorbachev will attend and perhaps even address the crowd, which they expect to match the 50,000 or so who marched after the December 4th election to highlight alleged vote-rigging and to denounce Mr Putin’s ruling clique.
In some of his strongest criticism of Mr Putin and his protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Gorbachev said he felt the spirit of “perestroika” – the name given to his liberalisation of Soviet life – moving again in Russia after a period of political stagnation.
He also urged Russians to link their protests to next March’s presidential election – when Mr Putin expects to return to the Kremlin for a possible 12 further years in power – by pledging to vote only for a candidate who agrees to annul the results of the general election and rerun it.
“We can only trust the voice of those candidates who raise the question of annulling these elections,” Mr Gorbachev said of the recent vote for a new lower house of parliament, or Duma.
“Make this a condition: cancel these elections . . . How can we leave a Duma like this in power for five years at such a difficult historical moment?
“You need to tell people the truth, because you can’t build relationships on lies.”
Mr Gorbachev also sharply criticised Mr Putin for using a television address this month to mock the protesters and accuse them of being manipulated by foreign powers.
“It was unpleasant. And shameful. I was ashamed. I felt myself linked with Putin because in those early days, when he came to power, I actively supported him here and abroad. Everywhere. And now?”
As Russians mark the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union – something Mr Gorbachev blames on his usurper, Boris Yeltsin – the last Soviet leader said Russian politics was now stirring in ways that reminded him of what he wanted to achieve with his Perestroika reforms.
“I’m proud of what our people are doing . . . The mood has changed. People’s depression is lifting. It means we didn’t act in vain,” he said in an interview with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
“They trod on us and broke us because of perestroika . . . But now a link is being restored with everything that we selflessly started, in the name of everything we took risks for. Freedom, personal honour – that’s what we wanted.”
The day after pledging to reform Russian politics in his final state-of-the-nation address, Mr Medvedev yesterday requested Duma approval for measures to restore the direct election of regional governors and to make it easier for parties and candidates to run in elections – potentially reversing parts of Mr Putin’s decade-long drive to centralise power.
