Medvedev orders Russia poll inquiry, gets insults

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation on Sunday into allegations of fraud in Russia’s parliamentary election, one day after tens of thousands of protesters demanded it be annulled and rerun.

Medvedev responded on his Facebook site to the protesters’ complaints that the December 4 election, won by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia, was slanted in its favor.

But he did not mention their calls for an end to Putin’s rule and received one insult after another on his Facebook site from people who made clear his reply was insufficient.

Within hours of his statement, Medvedev had received several thousand comments on his Facebook site, many of them negative, plenty of them disrespectful and some of them highly insulting.

“We don’t believe you,” wrote Natalia Akhi.

Irina Arapova asked: “And who’s going to do the checking? The executive authorities (United Russia)?”

The next big day of protests is planned on December 24 when Alexei Navalny, one of the protest leaders, will have served a 15-day jail term received for his role in a protest last week.