MOSCOW, March 3: Russian riot police swooped on a demonstration against Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential election win in Moscow on Monday as leading Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov denounced the poll as a ‘farce’. Plainclothes officers and more than 100 police in full riot gear detained dozens of protesters as they tried to gather in central Moscow after failing to get approval for the rally from city authorities, a reporter witnessed.

Among those detained were Nikita Belykh, head of the Union of Right Forces, a liberal opposition party, and Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent human rights activist.

Mr Ponomaryov said from a police station that he thought over 100 people had been detained.

Police grabbed protesters as soon as they pulled out placards, flags or flares, while one group was taken away after starting up a chant of ‘We need a different Russia!’ Even those who offered no resistance were manhandled. One elderly man was taken away in a headlock before being loaded into one of the waiting police vans and buses.

However, police refrained from the violent measures taken at previous demonstrations, Mr Ponomaryov noted, ironically describing this as a reflection of Russia’s newly elected ‘more liberal president,’ Medvedev.

Earlier, Russia’s election commission confirmed that Mr Medvedev, the protégé of outgoing President Vladimir Putin, had won Sunday’s presidential election by a landslide, scoring 70.23 per cent of the vote.

“I’m here to stand up to these fascists. I’m not afraid of being detained,” said one protester, Oleg, a 25-year-old member of the opposition movement that Kasparov leads, The Other Russia.

Before being hauled off by police, Mr Belykh told reporters: “We think the ban on this march was illegal. I am just here as a private citizen.” He said the elections were ‘a farce’. Separately in the second city and former imperial capital Saint Petersburg, some 2,500-3,000 protesters held an authorised rally led by Mr Kasparov. Police confirmed that estimate of the crowd size.

Mr Kasparov, once the undisputed king of international chess and now a vehement opponent of Mr Putin’s leadership, told the crowd the election results had been dreamt up by the authorities.

He has previously received warnings from Russian authorities not to flout the law after spending five days in jail for organising a protest last November.

“They decided on 70 per cent for themselves but they’re afraid of us. They need the special forces and security forces because without them they are helpless,” he said.—AFP