Pro-Kremlin parties win Russian regional polls

MOSCOW, Mar 12 (Reuters) Pro-Kremlin parties won regional elections, preliminary results showed today, after a campaign which left Russia's weak opposition more marginalised than ever.

United Russia, a party which supports President Vladimir Putin, was leading in 13 out of 14 regions. Fair Russia, another pro-Kremlin party, led in the other region.

Yesterday's ballot for regional assemblies and mayors involved just under a third of the total electorate and was widely seen as a dry run for national parliamentary elections in December.

Pundits had predicted government parties, buoyed by a strong economy, Kremlin-controlled media, generous funding and Putin's high personal popularity, would sweep the vote.

Critics of the Kremlin say the opposition, in retreat since Putin's first presidential win in 2000, never stood a serious chance.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose party trailed well behind United Russia, alleged numerous violations of electoral rules.

''There have never been such dirty elections in Russia,'' he told reporters.

Liberal opposition parties, ignored by state-controlled media and struggling to find support, were reduced to mounting isolated protests after officials struck them off the ballot in four regions for alleged electoral misdeeds.

United Russia was trailed by the Communists and Fair Russia in most regions.

But Fair Russia led in the southern Stavropol region with 37 percent of the vote after 86 percent of the votes had been counted, followed by United Russia and the Communists.

ISOLATED PROTESTS In Russia's second city St Petersburg, the small Yabloko opposition party urged supporters to spoil their ballot papers to protest against the party's exclusion from the election.

Officials said some of the signatures on Yabloko's registration documents were forged, a charge the party denied.

''We will not recognise this election, which we believe is not legitimate,'' said Maxim Reznik, head of Yabloko's St Petersburg branch.

United Russia won 36.7 per cent of the vote in St Petersburg, followed by Fair Russia with 22.4 per cent and the Communists with 16.1 per cent, according to local election officials.

Political analysts say the main interest was how United Russia would fare against Fair Russia, a pro-government rival party created last year from the merger of three smaller groups.

The analysts say the carefully managed contest is intended to create an illusion of choice for voters while cementing the Kremlin's dominance over political life before a presidential election in March 2008.

United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov said after polls closed that he would consider coalitions with Fair Russia in areas where neither party had a majority.

Yesterday's voting was generally calm. Police arrested several protesters from a fringe group who threw a smoke grenade into a polling station in Moscow's western suburb of Odintsovo.

Police detained two photographers and a Reuters cameraman at the scene. After six hours in a police station they were freed without charge.

REUTERS SB BST1110