Kremlin opponents cry foul over voter turnout bill

MOSCOW, Nov 9 (Reuters) The pro-Kremlin majority in Russia's parliament agreed on Thursday to introduce a draft law abolishing minimum turnouts at elections, a step critics said would favour the Kremlin's candidates.

The measure is likely to join a series of changes to election rules that opponents of President Vladimir Putin say are designed to make sure nothing can derail plans to install an anointed successor when he steps down in 2008.

''The Kremlin is very nervous about how things will turn out,'' said Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. ''(They want) triple and quadruple guarantees that nothing will happen.'' Laws in force now state an election is invalid if fewer than 20 per cent of eligible voters turn out. In most important presidential polls the required minimum turnout is 50 percent.

The Constitutional Law and State-Building Committee in the lower house of parliament voted on Thursday to insert an amendment into a draft law that will make a vote valid even if just a handful of voters show up.

Members of the committee, dominated by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said the change would not make elections in Russia any less democratic.

Putin is hugely popular at home but his critics say he has presided over a campaign to roll back democratic freedoms in Russia and cement Kremlin rule.

Russia will in 2007 vote in a parliamentary election widely seen as a dress rehearsal for the presidential vote the next year. Whoever Putin endorses as his successor will be instant favourite to win the 2008 election.

DEFERENTIAL VOTERS United Russia's huge majority means the amendment is almost certain to pass when parliament votes on it, probably on November 15. It will then need one further reading before passing to the upper house of parliament.

Regional elections this year have shown that Kremlin-linked candidates often do best in low turnout elections.

Analysts say that is because young people and educated professionals -- the groups most likely to challenge the status quo -- stay away believing elections offer them no real choice.

The small minority that do vote -- the elderly and public sector workers -- tend to defer to the Kremlin.

Opposition politician Sergei Popov said he knew of local votes in which the local authorities had deliberately tried to keep the turnout low.

''They know the people who will turn out to vote will be for them and as for the rest, they think it's best that they do not show up at all,'' he said.

Committee Chairman Vladimir Pligin defended the amendment by handing out to reporters lists of established democracies that have no minimum turnout at elections.

''I would not judge the amount of democracy in a country in terms of whether it has a law on turnout,'' he said. ''The two things are not connected.'' REUTERS AB RAI2351