The United States considered the parliamentary elections held in Russia neither free nor fair

The United States questioned the integrity of the parliamentary elections in Russia on Monday, denouncing that the government’s attack on its critics had “prevented the Russians from exercising their civic and political rights”, so the process unfolded without transparency and justice.

“The elections to the Duma from September 17 to 19 in the Russian Federation took place in conditions not conducive to a free and fair procedureThe State Department spokesman said.

“We call on Russia to honor its international obligations to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to end the campaign of pressure on civil society, the political opposition and the independent media.Added the statement.

The opposition, largely excluded from these elections, like the main opponent, the prisoner Alexeï Navalny, denounced massive fraud since the ruling party, United Russia, has claimed a qualified majority in the Duma, the parliament.

Despite these accusations, the Russian presidency celebrated “the transparency and probity” of these legislative elections.

For its part, the European Union denounced this Monday an atmosphere of intimidation approaching the elections and regretted the absence of independent election observers.

In turn, the UK Foreign Office noted that “the measures adopted by the Russian authorities to marginalize civil society, silence independent media and exclude genuine candidates opposition to participate in the elections undermine political pluralism and disagree with the international commitments that Russia has signed. The spokesperson added: “We are also disappointed by the undue limitations that Russia has placed on electoral supervision, including international observers, a key element of democratic control.”

Russian communist leader Gennadi Ziouganov, generally retained, he denounced the counterfeits and urged Putin to stop this “cheating”.

In Moscow, a bastion of Kremlin detractors, they claimed that the online votes had been tampered with, reversing the unfavorable United Russia trend observed in the vote count. “These are the elections of electronic fraud” Ivan Zhdanov, a comrade of Navalny in exile, said on Twitter.

Another of his allies, Leonid Volkov, denounced a “complete rewrite” of the results in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

A senior official of Vladimir Putin’s party, Andrei Turchak, assured that his party won at least 315 seats out of a total of 450 in the lower house of parliament, the Duma, with which he hailed a “clear and clean” victory. This result constitutes however a decrease for United Russia compared to 2016, when it obtained 54.2% of the vote, and 334 deputies.

Although Putin, 68, continues to have a good level of popularity, United Russia has lost its support in the face of deteriorating living conditions after years of economic stagnation, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

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