Is Putin in trouble?

Supporters of Russia's United Russia party chant slogans at a rally in Moscow on March 15, 2010. (Andrei Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images)

MOSCOW, Russia — Is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s all-powerful prime minister, in trouble?

Anti-government protests, a rare thing indeed, have begun to draw thousands of people across the country. And on Sunday, United Russia, the party created with the sole purpose of promoting Putin’s agenda, fared far worse than it hoped in regional elections, losing a key mayoral seat and its majority in half of the regions where votes were held.

“Society is tired of United Russia, tired of its dominance, and tired of the dictatorship of bureaucracy,” said Alexander Kynev, a political analyst.

The public mood has perceptively shifted.

Near daily scandals, many involving corrupt police and officials, have only heightened the anger of a people languishing under an economic crisis that shows few signs of easing. Official unemployment stands at 10 percent (independent observers think it is much higher) and a New Year’s rise in utility payments, as part of a slow post-Soviet desubsidization, have hit Russia’s poor particularly hard. 

After a smattering of anti-government protests around the country that drew, on average, about 2,000 people each, voters in some of Russia’s most provincial backwaters went to the polls on Sunday to vote for mayors and representatives to local and regional legislatures, or Dumas.

Despite widespread electoral violations — independent elections monitor Golos noted cases where United Russia officials handed out vodka and money, held voting in malls where free gifts were offered, and forced university students to vote — United Russia still failed to sweep the vote with the average 60 percent rate that it has long been used to. That’s the result it got in regional elections held as recently as October.

This time around, the ruling party only managed to take a majority in four of eight regional legislatures, slipping below 50 percent in Far Eastern Khabarovsk, Altai and Kurgan in Siberia and Sverdlovsk in the Urals, according to preliminary results.

Because of vote-rigging, the party's true showing was much lower, critics say.