Duma elections

Farid Babayev, the leader of the Yabloko party in Dagestan, who was shot some days ago, has died.

On Monday evening the TV Channel One broadcasted a clip where two actors who looked a bit like SPS leaders Belykh and Nemtsov recall the 1990s with nostalgy: "We are against the cult of personality, we are for the cult of cash!" says one of them. "We liberated the country from salaries and pensions," adds the other. The authorship of the clip is unknown, but it may be found on the web site of the so called Democratic party.

The federal office of SPS was attacked and sacked by unknown people. The doors of the apartments of the SPS activists were painted with graves and crosses.

The Moscow publishing house "Evropa" presented two book called "The enemies of the plan of Putin" and "The Fake structures. The ghosts of Russian politics". The presentation was attended by the infamous PR specialist Gleb Pavlovski. Both books maintain that the oppositional forces are a marginal, false opposition.

SPS was fined 50,000 rubles by the Krasnoyarsk court. The ruling said that the newspaper of SPS contained commercial ads. The SPS HQ in St.Petersburg was attacked by unknown people who threw manure at the office door.

The United Russia refused that they are sending letters to commercial structures demanding to sponsor their campaign. They said that the letters published in the Internet are fake and that the signature of the leader of the Kemerovo regional branch Dyudyayev. However, Dyudyayev, the author of the famous letter to the Siberian Coal and Energy company, confirmed that he signed this letter, but said that he didn't threaten those who refuse to participate.

Garry Kasparov, arrested during the Dissenters' March this Saturday, is still in custody. His lawyer, Olga Mikhailova could not visit him before the trial. Kasparov was found guilty based on the witnesses' statements, including two police reports written by one person, but contradicting each other. Vladimir Ryzhkov, member of Duma, attempted to visit Kasparov, but was not allowed to, in spite of his official status which gives him the right to visit prisoners. Kasparov's old opponent both in chess and in politics, Anatoly Karpov, made a fine gesture by visiting Kasparov in jail. However, he was not allowed to see Kasparov.

Kasparov's movement United Civilian Front (OGF) started a picket at the doors of the police department demanding to liberate Kasparov. The picket where only one person participates need not be preliminary approved by the authorities, so only man was standing there. However, he was joined soon by some vagrants who carried hand-made signs with similar demands. On this basis, the OGF protester was detained, since he was not alone any more.

The communists of Kamchatka announced recently that they have the information that the governor ordered the regional authorities to secure at least 80% of votes in favor of United Russia. As a result, more than 50% of the candidates of Fair Russia refused to enter into the election contest and the party will not participate in the elections. The vice-governor Drozdov ran a meeting with the directors of local typographies and warned them that every typography that would print a single leaflet of a party other than UR, will be closed.