MOSCOW, April 16 (RIA Novosti) - A leader of the left-wing Just Russia party has accused the Communists of using their links to the criminal underworld during elections in the West Siberian region around Krasnoyarsk.
The local parliamentary elections, widely considered a rehearsal for the December federal polls, were held in the Krasnoyarsk Territory Sunday, for the first time after it merged with two other Siberian territories in January. Just Russia, which is largely seen as a Kremlin-sponsored project to poach votes from the Communists, emerged third after the Communists (20.3%) and the winner of the vote, the pro-Kremlin United Russia (42.5%).
"The second place that the Communist Party of Russia secured on party lists during the elections to the Krasnoyarsk Territory legislature directly results from the unprincipled cooperation between the Communist leadership and criminals," Sergei Mironov, the Just Russia leader, said.
But Mironov said the elections were satisfactory for Just Russia on the whole. He also said the party came third on party lists with 12.5%, but second in terms of single-constituency candidates.
"Our party practiced a new tactic in the Krasnoyarsk Territory by promoting candidates both on party lists and on a single-constituency basis," Mironov said, adding that four single-constituency candidates from the party had made it to parliament.
The Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov, dismissed Mironov's accusations as absurd, adding that he himself had conducted a proactive election campaign and met with a great deal of voters in the area.
"I held 16 meetings, Mironov is incapable of doing this," he said and added his party did not use such visual campaign instruments as Just Party.
"Eleven portraits of Mironov can be seen on the way from the airport - the question is where has he found the money?" Zyuganov said.
Local election authorities said 17 minor violations had been discovered during the voting process, but that no official complaints had been made. But Viktor Kuznetsov representing the Communist Party in the State Duma and Andrei Klykov, deputy head of the legal group of the party's central committee, said 36 separate violations had been registered by 9 p.m. Sunday (1 p.m. GMT).
