Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion turned opposition leader, was detained by police and charged with public order offences after an anti-government rally in Moscow today, a week before parliamentary elections.

Kasparov and some of his supporters tried to march through central Moscow to hand in a petition at the central election commission following an hour-long demonstration by his loose opposition coalition, The Other Russia. A brawl ensued between demonstrators and police, and Kasparov and his bodyguards were bundled into a bus by OMON special police and driven a short distance. It's the second time he's been arrested this year.

Kasparov was then taken to Moscow's Meshchansky court and charged with two breaches of public order, Lyudmila Mamina, spokeswoman for The Other Russia, said in an e-mailed statement. He was ordered to be detained for five days, a later statement from Mamina said.

Kasparov's party, United Civil Front, has been barred from standing in the Dec. 2 election to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Most of the parties in The Other Russia have also not been registered for the vote. The United Russia party led by President Vladimir Putin may get about two-thirds of the vote, according to the Levada Center, an independent pollster.

Two other opposition figures, Lev Ponomaryov of the movement ``For Human Rights,'' and Eduard Limonov, head of the National Bolshevik party, were also being held, Mamina said in a statement.

Election Restrictions

Only the Communist Party, expected by Levada to get 14 percent, would join United Russia in the Duma. No other party is likely to pass the 7 percent threshold to return a deputy. Kasparov was trying to hand in a letter to the central election commission at the time of his detention, complaining that authorities allowed so many breaches of the law during the campaign that it added up to ``a conscious and planned breach of the Russian electoral system.''

After Kasparov's detention, riot police continued to scuffle with protesters, blocking them from marching down a central Moscow street. One young man shouting anti-Putin slogans was grabbed by plain-clothes police and dragged down the slushy street before being pushed into a bus.

At the protest rally before police broke up the march, Kasparov warned a crowd of two to three thousand that ``we know this regime is not allergic to blood.'' Another opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov of the Union of Right Forces, told the crowd that the authorities ``fear us,'' as his words were almost drowned out by noise coming from concealed loudspeakers placed near the site of the rally.

Coming Election

Nemtsov said Russia was ranked by Transparency International in 143rd place in a listing of the world's most corrupt countries, level with Zimbabwe and Niger. ``It's a disgrace,'' he said. ``We're here because we're for a Russia against corruption, against Putin.''

The Dec. 2 parliamentary election will be followed in March by a presidential election. Putin is barred from running by the constitution, which stops a president from serving more than two consecutive terms.

The Other Russia stages regular rallies, and police have turned out in greater numbers than the protesters to disperse them. Kasparov was arrested at a march in Moscow April 14, when 9,000 police were on hand to watch about 2,000 protesters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sebastian Alison in Moscow at Salison1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 24, 2007 15:54 EST