MOSCOW - Students in Siberia, doctors on the Volga river, and office workers in Moscow say they are being threatened with disciplinary action if they do not vote in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Officials have denied there is a campaign to force people to vote and President Vladimir Putin, who is leading his United Russia party into the election, said this week it would be "honest, as transparent as possible and open."
But Kremlin critics say reports of employers putting pressure on their staff to vote confirm their suspicion the vote will be skewed to ensure a big personal endorsement for Putin. Russian law states voting is voluntary.
Senior United Russia figures have billed the poll as a referendum in support of Putin. Analysts say the Kremlin wants a high turnout -- as well as a win for United Russia -- so it can present the result as a convincing vote of confidence in Putin.
Accounts collected by Reuters, and others posted on Internet blogs, suggest some employers are telling their staff to vote at work on Sunday -- even though for many it is not a working day -- where managers plan to check who has cast their ballot.
An employee with a firm that rents space at Gorbushkin Dvor, a massive indoor market in Moscow, said an aide to one of the market's managers told her boss to make sure his staff show up at work on Sunday.
"The essence of the conversation was that on December 2 there will be elections to the State Duma (parliament) and that our staff ... about 70 or 80 people should come here," she said.
"All of them will be loaded onto buses and we should all vote for the United Russia party," the employee, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
"They said: 'Do you want to continue to rent the premises at the same price as now?' ... They named a price that would have forced us to move because for us it was not a realistic price."
A senior Gorbushkin Dvor manager said people working on Sunday were simply being given the option of voting nearby for their convenience.
