In a damning indictment of the Russia’s political system, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has said elections have been turned into a “mockery”.

78-year-old Gorbachev, who was instrumental in the introduction of democracy in the former Communist state, criticised the ruling United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, describing the recent elections as a stage-managed “mockery” of voters.

“In the eyes of everybody, elections have been turned into a mockery of people and a symbol of disrespect for their choices,” he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph newspaper, following local elections earlier this month that Kremlin opponents described as the dirtiest in living memory.

“The electoral system has been maimed,” the British daily quoted him as telling Novaya Gazeta, a liberal newspaper.

Putin’s United Russia won a landslide victory, clinching almost 80 per cent of the vote in many regions.

The anti-Kremlin opposition complained that its candidates were illegally removed from the ballot, its meetings disrupted, its supporters intimidated and its campaign messages drowned out, the report said.

“If such disciplined and cautious people who are so close to power decided to undertake such a demarche, it means that faith in the political institution of elections is definitively lost,” said Gorbachev, who resigned as the last Soviet leader in 1991.

Till now he has been careful to moderate his criticism of Putin while speaking out about tendencies he finds disturbing.