MOSCOW: A Russian mayoral candidate who has been on hunger strike for three weeks protesting what he says were rigged local polls said Monday he would continue until the authorities call free elections.
"The 24th day of the hunger strike is over. Tomorrow will be day 25," said Oleg Shein, who last month ran for mayor in the Volga city of Astrakhan, located 1,500 kilometers (995 miles) southeast of Moscow, and lost.
"We are not suicidal and we don't see electing me mayor as our goal," Shein, 40, who has been on hunger strike with two dozen other supporters, wrote on his blog.
"Our goal is honest elections that will put an end to the mafia system in Astrakhan."
Shein, a member of the populist A Just Russia party, lost to a candidate from the ruling United Russia party, garnering around 30 percent of the vote while the frontrunner received 60 percent.
Shein claims he should have won 47 percent and his United Russia rival 42 percent had the vote not been rigged. He says he has documented evidence proving the fraud.
Following the March 4 vote -- where municipal polls coincided with presidential elections won by Vladimir Putin -- he and more than 20 of his supporters have gone on hunger strike. Several participants have dropped out for health reasons.
Speaking to AFP, Shein said the governor of the Astrakhan region had recently visited the protesters urging them to stop.
"He told us to stop because this is causing political irritation in Moscow," Shein said, his voice sounding weak.
Observers say the three-week hunger strike has taken its toll on the protesters, many of whom are now exhausted.
"Many can hardly talk and move," said the Voters' League, an opposition group comprising some of Russia's most prominent cultural figures.
Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition parliament member with A Just Russia, said he would call on Russia's outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev to intervene. The Kremlin has not yet publicly reacted to the protest.
Medvedev next month will cede his post to Putin, who secured a crushing victory in March presidential elections which the opposition says were rigged.
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