Kasparov urges EU to demand fair Russian elections

STRASBOURG, France, May 23 (Reuters) Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov urged the European Union today to use its weight to press for a free and democratic presidential election in Russia next year.

The European Parliament gave the former world chess champion a platform from which to launch a stinging attack on President Vladimir Putin a week after Russian authorities prevented him and other protesters from travelling to a Russia-EU summit.

Kasparov rejected suggestions that support for his United Civil Front opposition group was waning and predicted a ''severe political crisis'' inside the Kremlin by the end of the year as rivals within Putin's camp fight to succeed the president.

''We are going to use all our resources, though limited, to ...

ensure the election in March 2008 is not a fake one. We hope Europe will support us in this fight for solid, democratic institutions in Russia,'' Kasparov told a news conference with European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering.

''I have no doubt Russia will be facing a severe political crisis by the end of the year because of the inability of the current regime to come up with a unified candidate to succeed Putin,'' he said, forecasting that some Putin backers might defect to the opposition.

Kasparov's appearance at the EU legislature coincided with a European tour by Putin, going from Austria today to Luxembourg on Thursday. Kremlin watchers say the visits are designed to show he can get on with individual European leaders while his relationship with the bloc as a whole is rocky.

Putin has said he will step down next year after two consecutive four-year terms but has indicated he will seek to retain some political influence.

Candidates to succeed him include first deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev, Railway Chief Vladimir Yakunin and Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin.

Kasparov said his group's failure to draw large crowds to its protest rallies was partly because of fears of harsh treatment by riot police, questioning the credibility of opinion polls that show Putin has wide popular support.

''Having 5,000 on a Moscow street is more impressive than having 100,000 on Paris street protesting,'' he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU leaders criticised the clamp-down on protests at a nervy summit with Putin in the southern city of Samara last week which failed to solve a raft of disputes between Brussels and Moscow.

While acknowledging that Russian energy is vital to the European economy, EU leaders say they are pressing Putin to answer concerns over human rights and democracy in Russia.

A decision by British prosecutors this week to seek the extradition of a former KGB agent on suspicion of murdering Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London is likely to add to a long list of grievances between Europe and Russia.

They include differences over the Serbian province Kosovo, with Moscow threatening to veto a UN plan for independence, and a row over a Russian ban on Polish meat imports.

REUTERS DS ND1908