Left Front, Communists unite in Russia MOSCOW, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Russia's radical Left Front movement said Tuesday it will join forces with the country's Communist Party in backing party head Gennady Zyuganov's election bid. The Left Front and the Communist Party say they hope party veteran Zyuganov will prevent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from winning the presidency, RIA Novosti reported. The state-run news agency said the pact represents a "striking show of unity between two generations of opposition forces" ahead of the March presidential elections. "This is a historic and important moment," Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov said as he signed the agreement. For his part, Zyuganov said if elected, he would carry out demands of organizers of mass protests over alleged electoral fraud in December's parliamentary elections. The demands include a rerun of the election before the end of 2012, dismissal of election chief Vladimir Churov and "fundamental" changes in electoral law. "We risk a split unless left forces rally around a single candidate," Udaltsov said. We are placing our stake on Gennady Zyuganov. He also called Zyuganov the opposition candidate "most likely" to defeat Putin. A state-run pollster found last week 10 percent of Russians support Zyuganov. The survey, by VTSiOM, also found Putin has backing from 45 percent of voters, not enough to win the first round. Meanwhile, Russia is likely to be asked at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg next week to provide a strategy to "democratize political life," RIA Novosti said, and a PACE delegation will visit Russia Jan 20-21 to complete its report on the country's parliamentary elections.