MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) -- Two of the parties that walked out of Russia's lower house of parliament in protest against Sunday's regional election results have said they will return on Friday.
On Wednesday, three parties - the Communists, the LDPR, and the Kremlin-backed party A Just Russia - walked out of a State Duma session in protest against alleged violations in the October 11 local elections, which the ruling United Russia party won by a landslide.
The LDPR and A Just Russia have said they will end their boycott, but the Communists have said they will continue to protest.
Igor Lebedev, head of the LDPR faction, said President Dmitry Medvedev had promised party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky that he would meet with LPDR MPs.
"The president promised that the meeting would take place in the very near future - probably next week, and asked parliament to return to work as normal," Lebedev said.
"We are a constructive opposition, elected by the people to pass laws, and this is why we will return to the house tomorrow," he said.
The LDPR is demanding a nationwide recount. It also says polls in Moscow, Central Russia's Tula Region and the Volga Republic of Mari El should be declared invalid, and a new vote scheduled for March 2010.
The Communists said that although a meeting with the Russian president had been agreed on, they did not plan to attend Friday's State Duma session.
"We will continue our fight," party leader Gennady Zyuganov said.
Both the LDPR and the Communists said they had reported numerous cases of voting violations to the relevant bodies, but had received no reply. Zyuganov said party monitors had reported "barbarity" on election day.
Russian media reported that OMON riot police officers had fired tear gas at residents of Dagestan's second city of Derbent, where around 14 of 36 polling stations failed to open on election day.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reported that OMON officers had also attacked journalists attempting to film infringements of voting procedures.
