Moscow City Hall has authorized up to 50,000 opposition activists to rally on the downtown Novy Arbat Street on Saturday to protest the results of the March 4 presidential elections, leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov said on his Twitter on Wednesday.
Between 14,000 and 20,000, according to various estimates, rallied in Moscow on Monday, protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s victory at the polls, which, critics said, was due to administrative resource and vote rigging.
Up to 3,000 protesters refused to leave immediately after the rally and were dispersed by riot police, who briefly detained 250 people, including Udaltsov and whistleblowing blogger Alexei Navalny.
City Hall said it would “take into consideration” the standoff with police on Monday when deciding on the upcoming rally, prompting fears that the opposition’s request to rally would be turned down.
Moscow authorities and the opposition have only agreed on venues for all previous protest rallies, continuing in the capital since the parliamentary elections in December, after tense negotiations and, in some cases, protesters threatening to rally despite a possible ban.
The opposition earlier planned to stage two more rallies on Thursday and Friday, but dropped these plans, saying they had run out of time to agree the plans with City Hall.
