MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin faces a huge challenge to restore his dented authority after tens of thousands of people stepped up pressure on him across Russia by staging the largest opposition protests since he rose to power more than a decade ago.
Demonstrators took to the streets of dozens of cities across the vast country on Saturday in largely peaceful rallies which called for an end to his rule and a rerun of a parliamentary election which they say was rigged to favour his ruling party.
From the Pacific port of Vladivostok in the east to Kaliningrad in the west, nearly 7,400 km (4,600 miles) away, they shouted slogans such as "Putin must go!" and "Swindlers and thieves - give us our elections back!"
In a sign of recognition that the people's mood has changed, the security forces hardly intervened and city authorities allowed the protests to go ahead. State television broadcast footage of a huge protest in Moscow, breaking a policy of showing almost no negative coverage of the authorities.
But a statement from Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, gave no hint that the prime minister was about to shift direction to answer the protesters' demands or bow to their calls to annul the Dec. 4 election and allow it to be rerun. It also made no reference to the protesters' calls for Putin to go.
"We respect the point of view of the protestor, we are hearing what is being said, and we will continue to listen to them," Peskov said in a statement released late on Saturday.
That is unlikely to appease protesters who issued a list of demands at the Moscow rally, which police said was attended by 25,000 people and the organisers said attracted up to 150,000.
The demands included a rerun of the election, sacking the election commission chief and freeing people the protesters define as political prisoners, and the organisers called for a new day of protests on Dec. 24.
"I am happy. December 10, 2011 will go down in history as the day the country's civic virtue and civil society was revived. After 10 years of hibernation, Moscow and all Russia woke up," Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, wrote in his blog.
"The main reason why it was such a big success is that a feeling of self-esteem has awakened in us and we have all got so fed up with Putin's and Medvedev's lies, theft and cynicism that we cannot tolerate it any longer together we will win!"
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