Russia's ruling party calls elections 'dirty'

Russia's ruling party said Sunday's regional elections were "dirty" and it traded accusations of fraud with the opposition.

The United Russia party, which is chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, normally defends the legitimacy of elections, which it tends to win by a wide margin.

The party was looking for Sunday's ballots in 76 of Russia's 83 regions to show that it can still garner broad support despite the country's economic hardships and high unemployment.

United Russia parliamentary deputy Vyacheslav Timchenko said in a statement issued by the party that the elections were marked by a "shockingly large number of violations."

He said Russia's three main opposition parties _ the Communists, the right-wing Liberal Democrats and the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party _ were involved in vote buying, an accusation frequently leveled against United Russia in past elections.

"These are very dirty elections... One gets the impression that certain opposition parties have taken the president's call for greater democratization and electoral development as an excuse to break the law," Timchenko said in the statement.

In an article in September, President Dmitry Medvedev called for greater pluralism in Russia's political system, saying that Russia should move toward a system where multiple parties periodically take each other's place in power.

Earlier Sunday, the Communists had claimed United Russia was abusing its administrative resources in the Krasnodar mayoral elections by busing police cadets to vote for the party's candidate in districts where they were not registered.

Russia's main independent elections watchdog, Golos, also reported irregularities in many regions, including factory workers in Ekaterinburg being pressured to vote for United Russia by their employers.

The head of the Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov, a longtime Putin associate known for deflecting opposition claims of vote fraud, attacked "political technologists" in the region of Ryazan for handing out free alcohol to voters on election day, Interfax news agency reported.

"That was a clear provocation... Unfortunately, my dream that the last political technologist will be dead hasn't come true yet," Churov was quoted as saying.

Across the country, there were more than 6,000 local elections and referendums Sunday.

The last major voting day for the Russian regions in October ended in a landslide for United Russia but was marred by allegations of widespread fraud.