Citing an article in the newspaper Vedomosti, the radio station said that the leading party was preparing legislative amendments to this end in response to recent moves by oppositionists in the Duma.

The fate of the deputies would be put in the hands of the Duma Commission on Ethics as well as parliamentary leadership. If the amendments are passed, deputies could be deprived of their status simply for receiving a disciplinary reprimand.

According to the paper, the project is being spearheaded by United Russia Deputy Vladimir Pekhtin, who heads the ethics commission and already previously developed the basics of the amendments. He proposed that deputy mandates be taken away, in particular, for “malicious non-attendance” of legislative sessions, for refusing to disclose salaries, for personal travel abroad on their diplomatic passports, or for making public statements that discredit the parliament or have an “anti-state orientation.”

Currently, deputies can have their status revoked only after being convicted of a crime by a court of law. While the Duma is already closed for the rest of the summer, the measure may be considered as soon as sessions resume.

The idea for the amendment first came after a group of deputies from A Just Russia held a filibuster in June to try and delay the passage of a bill to severely increase fines for violating regulations on public protests. Eventually the measure was passed after the deputies staged a walk-out. Opposition politicians fear that Pekhtin’s measure would allow United Russia to carry out its own purge of the Duma. Speaking to Vedomosti, Communist Party Deputy Vadim Solovyov argued that it would contradict both the spirit and the norms of the Constitution.

Earlier, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin told ITAR-TASS in an interview that the opposition walk-outs constituted a threat to Russia’s parliamentary system.

Svirid filed the charges following an article in the December 2011 volume of Esquire magazine, in which Navalny made what RIA Novosti characterized as “unflattering” comments about members of the United Russia party. Among other things, Navalny said in the issue: “If you join United Russia, you are a thief. And if you’re not a thief, then you are definitely a swindler, because your name is protecting the other swindlers and thieves.”

“The plaintiff asked for the defendant to retract statements made by Navalny on LiveJournal and also compensate him with one million rubles for moral harm.” said Maria Balakshina, press secretary for the Lyublinsky Court. “The court partially satisfied Svirid’s claims.”

The same court dismissed similar charges against Navalny by Svirid in October 2011. In that case, the deputy argued that Navalny’s phrase “United Russia is a party of swindlers and thieves” caused him moral harm.

Navalny first used the phrase on the radio station Finam FM, saying that this was his “value judgment” of the party. It was this incident that Svirid referred to in his case.

It is largely because of Navalny that the title “Party of Swindlers and Thieves” has become popularly known as the opposition’s appellation for United Russia, the party led for most of its history by Vladimir Putin and now by Dmitri Medvedev.

Vladimir Burmatov, another State Duma deputy from United Russia and chair of the Committee on Education, called on other party members to follow in Svirid’s footsteps.

“In connection with this, I would propose that all of our party members should create their own sort of flash mob. Let everyone appeal to the courts with identical suits against Navalny… And if everyone wins 30 thousand rubles – and we have two million people in our party – then it’ll turn out that Navalny, who insults honest people so frivolously, will owe us all a total of 60 billion rubles,” or 1.8 billion USD, Burmatov said.

“The school initiative was announced by Secretary of the Presidium of the General Council Sergei Neverov and it is to be carried out by presidium members Andrei Isayev and Aleksei Chesnakov,” a party source told the paper.

Neverov himself told Vedomosti that the party held its first meeting on the issue on May 31. In his words, the goal of the school would be to exert influence on promising young people throughout Russia’s regions and help them become true leaders.

“The first thing that will happen is the regions will be asked to nominate one promising party member, and the group of candidates to become students in the party school will hold a party primary, competing for the right to be supported by United Russia in the fall elections,” Vedomosti explained.

Courses taught at the party school will include economics, party structure, ideology, electoral campaign technology and primary procedures, psychology, public speaking skills, and skills on how to cooperate with state agencies and civil society.

Neverov added that Medvedev would possibly appear before the students personally. The prime minister was elected head of United Russia in a suspiciously unanimous vote on May 26.

A source in the Kremlin said that the presidential administration had no issue with the party initiative.

According to the party, the country’s opposition parties are “getting ahead of themselves” by holding protests against expected falsifications of the upcoming election.

Party secretary Sergei Neverov expressed certainty that both the non-systemic and systemic opposition “are looking to justify their fiascos ahead of time because they know that none of their candidates can present Vladimir Putin with any kind of real competition.”

Neverov believes that the election results will be denounced by the opposition as falsified no matter what they are. In his opinion, oppositionists “don’t need fair presidential elections; they’re prepared to use any electoral campaign as a means to discredit the existing political system.”

He also argued that opposition forces were “acting irresponsibly” and that they saw the fate of the country as “loose change.”

The complaints come a week after State Duma deputies from United Russia asked deputies from the Communist Party, Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia to “make a joint anti-orange revolution” resolution in response to a wave of mass protests against blatant electoral fraud in December parliamentary elections. The three parties rejected the plea.

One of the conclusions that can be reached from the December 4 elections is that the “Party of Swindlers and Thieves” has, once again, brilliantly lived up to its name. Cheating and thievery have ceased to even be an open secret, and it involved not only the massive falsifications that the party of power needed in order to hold on to their crumbling power vertical, but also the sharp rise in civil activeness, with large number of people unexpectedly refusing to play the role of silent viewers in the Kremlin’s marionette theater.

Experts in electoral math will soon undoubtedly be able to show us graphics of United Russia’s actual results. The unnatural vote spread across the various regions of the country, along with the numerous violations documented by observers at polling stations and in electoral commissions, will provide irrefutable evidence that Churov’s agency worked to over-fulfill their plan at the rate of a Stakhanovite.

By all accounts, United Russia’s objective results even across the entire country aren’t above 30 percent, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg the party in power suffered a crushing defeat, loosing not only to the Communist Party, but even, most likely, to A Just Russia. This casts doubt upon the professional integrity of our so-called sociological services, whose “public opinion polls” predicted just a week ago that United Russia would have the support of 53 percent of the population. But if the Foundation for Public Opinion and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion aren’t ashamed of their Kremlin-provided roofs, then one would hope to hear from the Levada Center, which holds its reputation more dear, an explanation as to why their predictions turned out to be even more optimistic than the final results of Mr. Churov’s agency.

Another result of December 4 is that we can be certain that the period of social apathy that Russian society succumbed to ten years ago is now a relic of the past.

But today’s main question, of course, is about the readiness of the systemic opposition to begin a fight against United Russia’s dictate. It would be naive to say that the Communist Party, LDPR, or United Russia together with Yabloko are going to achieve a full nullification of the falsified elections, but the people who voted for them have the right to expect, at minimum, a demand to hold a recount where mass violations are uncovered, and the criminal prosecution of officials guilty of committing and hiding these crimes.

In addition, the systemic opposition is going to have to resolve the question of fielding candidates for president. Now that it’s been spooked, the government is going to try to minimize its risks and prevent the rise of any notable figures who are capable of uniting the protest electorate, which is exploding in front of their eyes. It’s not worth waiting for any revelations from the Communist Party or LDPR. Although, the Communists are completely capable of finding a more suitable candidate than Zyuganov, who feels at home in his comfortable role as the government’s sparring partner. But for A Just Russia, if it is, contrary to expectations, prepared to challenge the Putin regime, one potential solution comes to mind. Oksana Dmitrieva, whose success in a presidential election is something out of a science fiction novel – at least in the two capitals – could become the candidate whose presence makes a second round entirely plausible.

The events of the forthcoming week will put an end to the dispute that the nonsystemic opposition has been having for the past several months. The various plans of action for December 4 rested on one key point of disagreement: whether or not conditions exist where the Kremlin-fed systemic opposition could agree upon a bunt against Putin. A more favorable situation than the present is impossible to imagine.

If Mironov and Ko demonstrate their readiness to begin a fight to dismantle the regime by unleashing a real pre-electoral campaign attacking the national leader with the same principles with which they were ready to “flush the Party of Swindlers and Thieves down the toilet,” then I will be ready to publicly admit my mistake in judging the ineffectiveness of existing electoral mechanisms.

But if the actions of the systemic opposition lead to the emasculation of popular protest and turn out to be just a storm in a teacup that ends with the redistribution of Duma portfolios and financial flows, then I expect that my opponents will publicly admit that it is impossible to change the Putin regime within any sort of framework of electoral procedures and will begin to join in with our collective efforts to create an alternative list of voters. Incidentally, this is one of the very rare cases where I’d like to admit that I’m wrong…

On Sunday evening, about 100 people gathered to protest across from the Sochi railway station, many with their children. Posters were raised that read “government of the RF, step down!”, “the government is scorning the people!”, “the Olympic law is against the constitution!” and others.

Addressing the crowd, lead protesters explained that entire families in Sochi were being thrown out onto the streets, their homes and land being taken away, and their belongings crushed by bulldozers – in their words, hundreds of Sochi residents have been made homeless.

Much was said about the lawlessness of the judicial and executive branches of government, corruption in the law enforcement system, and that the ruling party will use any excuse to drive out Sochi residents if it means there will be more room for the wealthy. The protesters also issued a call for people to not vote for the “anti-people” party United Russia in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Irina Brovkina, who organized the event, said local authorities have thus far ignored their protests because the group has been speaking out against the leading United Russia party.

Despite an invitation from organizers, no officials from the United Russia leadership showed up at the protest.

The protesters suffered from numerous provocations during their demonstration, with groups of young people verbally harassing them and two passers-by attempting to grab their megaphone and shout pro-United Russia slogans.

The preparations for Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Olympics have been fraught with violations to human and civil rights, labor rights, and the environment almost since day one. A federal law regulating the organization of the preparation for the games was passed in December 2007, which has then been amended to include provisions allowing land and property to be confiscated by the state if it lies in the way of plans for Olympic facility construction. According to the amendments, a property owner has one month to decide what amount of compensation he wants for his property, which will then undergo analysis by an independent assessor contracted by the state-owned corporation Olimpstroy and the Krasnodarsky Krai regional government. If the amount of compensation does not suit the owner, the case is to be looked at by a court, whose decision is to be immediately carried out.

However, many families have complained that the amount of compensation proposed by the authorities is low or that alternative housing – in rural mountain villages or adjacent to airport radar beacons – is incomparable to their homes in the seaside Imeretinskaya Valley.

Meanwhile, according to Kasparov.ru, Russian authorities say that the problem of compensating the evicted residents is practically resolved.

According to the results of a national poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), Medvedev’s faith rating has fallen from his all-time high of 62 percent in January 2010 to 46 percent in April 2011. The number of those polled who have faith in Putin also diminished over that period of time – from 69 to 53 percent. The prime minister’s highest recorded rating, according to FOM, was 71 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

Similarly, the rating for United Russia, the prime minister’s party that holds a near political monopoly over Russia’s political space, fell to 44 percent – the lowest figure in two years. At the same time, the level of distrust towards the party rose from 29 percent in January to 38 percent in April.

Opinions towards other political parties included in the survey – A Just Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and the Communist Party – remained largely unchanged, although ratings for the Communist Party were up slightly overall.

According to another recent survey done by the Levada Center, United Russia’s rating reached a two-year low in April. When asked what party those surveyed would vote for if elections were this coming Sunday, only 39 percent answered with United Russia. The rating for the Communist Party, however, rose from 12 to 18 percent over that period of time.

As Kasparov.ru pointed out, the Levada Center already noted a marked drop in the popularity of the Putin-Medvedev tandem and ruling party back in January. At the time, United Russia members dismissed the statistics as being influenced by seasonal factors – “a political hangover” – following the New Year’s holidays.

But the country’s leading political party, United Russia, dropped a bomb on the media today with news that it plans to support Putin in the election regardless.

As the Moscow Times and Reuters report:

The ruling United Russia party wants Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to stand in the 2012 presidential election, a top party official said Thursday.

“As for the party’s position on the 2012 elections, United Russia will orient itself on its leader Vladimir Putin,” said Yury Shuvalov, deputy secretary of the presidium of the party’s General Council, Interfax reported.

“Of course, we’d like to see Putin head the United Russia party list in December” for the State Duma vote, Shuvalov said. “And it’s his candidacy that we’re considering in the first place when deciding on a party candidate for the presidential elections.”

Putin heads United Russia without being a member. Uncertainty over whether he will return to the presidency, which he held in 2000-08, or back incumbent Dmitry Medvedev has pushed factions of the political elite to weigh in on the issue.

Both Putin and Medvedev have hinted they may run in the election, but each has said they will make the decision together.

According to Andrei Buzin, head of Golos’s monitoring branch, the organization recorded 720 cases of violations for the March 13 elections, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party dominated in all 12 regions where voting took place.

There were three types of violations, Buzin explained. The first has to do with the tallying of votes and the removal of electoral observers, as was noted in the cities of Syktyvkar, Vladimir, Adygea, and the Kirov and Kaliningrad regions. There were also cases of falsified voting documents, where people vote for other voters, and violations of remote and absentee ballot procedures.

Buzin attributed the rise in violations with the upcoming campaign for federal elections to the State Duma.

“This is about checking our public’s reaction before the federal elections,” he said.

It is worth noting that Russia’s Central Electoral Commission only recorded 90 complaints of violations.

The head of Golos’s analytical branch, Aleksandr Kynev, said the rise in violations is a sign of a general fall in United Russia’s ratings.

Kynev said the fall also explains the widespread use of propaganda campaigns to bash opposition candidates. Such campaigns and violations occur when local authorities and party branches are unable to get the number of votes ordered by the ruling party through other means, he explained.

The reasoning of the local authorities is that “if we can’t raise our ratings, we’ll damage other ones,” Kynev said.

Despite the negative campaigning, the number of voters across Russia who decided to cast their vote for an opposition candidate appears to be on the rise. The Communist Party received more votes than usual in a majority of voting regions, and A Just Russia saw improvements in the central regions.

“Despite generally very difficult circumstances and very harsh pressure, real protest is growing and the people are ready to vote for a semblance of an alternative, even when there isn’t one,” Kynev said.

In the past, activists have proposed boycotting elections, turning in spoiled ballots, and raising awareness of the obvious fraud the government carries out. In one year of particularly blatant falsifications, deputies from the three parties besides United Russia that held seats in the State Duma walked out in dramatic protest. In the end, President Dmitri Medvedev brushed off all objections and claimed the election results “reflected voter preferences.”

With a new set of elections in Russia’s regions coming up in March, famous activist lawyer and blogger Alexei Navalny has proposed a new strategy for the opposition: get out the vote for any party besides United Russia. He explained his reasoning on a blog post on Thursday:

Election day is going to be in March. The “elections” are being held in ten regions.

Afterwards, at the end of 2011, there will be federal “elections” for the State Duma.

We all understand perfectly well that these aren’t real elections – it is simply an unlawful process that results in representatives from the Party of Swindlers and Thieves – United Russia informing us that “we’ve received 65% of the vote.”

What is to be done in this situation?

I am forced to admit that my most dearly beloved topic – boycotting elections – has failed. It just doesn’t work.

That is to say: nobody, of course, goes to the polls – not because they’re boycotting them, but because they simply don’t pay any attention to them.

I think that, for all the normal people in our country, the time has come to change political strategy.

Our new conception should be: GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE AGAINST UNITED RUSSIA.

That is to say, for any other party – it makes no difference.

You don’t need to explain to me that A Just Russia is no different than United Russia, that Zhirik [LPDR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky – ed.] is awful, and that the Communist Party is ancient.

It makes no difference in the slightest. You are voting against the Party of Swindlers and Thieves.

We need to ruin United Russia’s monopoly over the government.

Why should we do this if they’re going to “draw in” 65% anyway?
Elections are, in any case, a source of stress for this vile government. Falsification is a difficult process that involves many thousands of people (members of the electoral commission, etc.).

Administrations in the regions where elections are going to be held in March will be doing basically nothing besides creating administrative falsifications. It’s hard enough to draw in 65% from the real 35%. Drawing 65% from 20% is going to be even harder. We need to exacerbate their stress.

Will this be successful in creating problems?
And how. Right now, 15-20% of the population actually goes to the polls. There’s a very large amount of absentee (read: fake) voting. That is to say, to put it simply, the vote for United Russia is the vote of 7-10% of voters. If we bring 1% of the population that didn’t go earlier to the polls, we create a big problem. If it’s 5% – a colossal one. If it’s 15%, then

How is this better than a boycott?
Because this kind of action will be supported by all activists of various parties and we won’t have to deal with the long, pointless ruckus of arguing with them over a boycott. We will actually get hundreds of thousands of supporters of our campaign right away.

The goal of the campaign is simple. Using online and offline methods to maximally promote two simple messages:

1. United Russia is a party of swindlers and thieves.
2. Go to the polls without fail and vote against United Russia. For any other party.

To promote the campaign, Navalny has begun a poster competition:

Strictly speaking, the coming elections and their results mean nothing for us.

And in general, all of this can be done without strain in an entertaining way that would be fun.

To start, I would propose holding a contest for a trash poster.

There are three requirements:

– Posters should be in a4 format, so that everyone can print them on a home (office) printer and hang them in entryways, elevators, next to desks in offices, in office cafeterias/bathrooms. Bring one to your grandmother and hang it on her door so the old lady remembers how to vote.

– The poster can show whatever, but it should clearly deliver two basic messages: 1) United Russia is a party of swindlers and thieves 2) Go to the polls and vote for any party, but against United Russia.

However the message gets through is unimportant. Whether it’s with pictograms or holograms.

You could, in fact, use verse from the poetry contest on Twitter. They can be found there under the #er tag.

Stuff like:

– Get your relatives a job in the Council of Directors!
Join the Party of Swindlers and Thieves!

– Not afraid to rob in front of the entire public?
We need you for the party of swindlers and thieves!

Navalny plans to eventually draw up a list of all the submissions and a corresponding poll, but for now, here are a few worth noting:

“United Russia – party of thieves and swindlers”

“He voted for United Russia. Shameful! Don’t repeat the mistake!”

“We’re eating Russia. Soon we’ll eat everything.”

“He always votes for United Russia. If ordered, he’ll also kick you in the face.”

“This is what the Great Wall of China would look like if it was built by specialists from the party United Russia”

“Method No. 34: Sell a third of all exported oil through your personal friend’s company. Learn more about this and other methods of sawing up Russia at rospil.info”

“Don’t rock the boat! Vote for United Russia!”

“Before they swipe your last pair of pants, vote against the party of swindlers and thieves! ‘United Russia’ ‘Any other party'”