Russians again protest lack of ballot choices

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of people rallied Saturday in one of Moscow’s biggest political protests in recent years, denouncing the exclusion of opposition and independent candidates from the Russian capital’s city council ballot.

The rally was the fourth consecutive weekend demonstration in Moscow over the local election. The determined opposition has prompted protests in other cities, reflecting widespread frustration with Russia’s tightly controlled politics.

Along with a demand that opposition candidates be allowed on the ballot for city council elections, protesters demanded Saturday that the authorities release those detained at past rallies. “Release! Release!” the crowd of protesters chanted at one point.

An arrest monitoring group said 178 people eventually were arrested in Moscow, while 70 people were arrested Saturday in St. Petersburg at an unsanctioned demonstration in support of the Moscow protests. OVDINFO said 275 people were jailed across Russia.

Unlike two earlier Moscow rallies, at which police harshly dispersed the crowds and detained thousands of demonstrators, Saturday’s gathering in a neighborhood with relatively few passers-by was officially sanctioned.

It was held on a street flanked by high buildings and sandwiched between two busy thoroughfares.

A group that monitors attendance at public meetings, Beliy Schetchik, said it counted about 50,000 people at the demonstration; a police estimate put the crowd at 20,000.

Lyubov Sobol, one of the city council candidates who was denied a place on the ballot and is a spearhead of the election protest, was among those detained in Moscow on Saturday.

A video on Sobol’s Twitter feed showed officers breaking into her office as she demanded an explanation from them.