US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is certain that Russia's parliamentary elections were unfair. She made the claim today in an address to a meeting of the OSCE member states' foreign ministers, Ekho Moskvy reports on Tuesday.
Previously, the group of international observers headed by Mateusz Piskorski said they had registered no violations. Later Mr. Piskorski elaborated that he and his collegues had only visited 5 polling stations.
Almost all the opposition parties, including the Communist Party, the A Just Russia party and the liberal Yabloko party reported severe violations. Many video recordings proving violations were also published on the Internet by citizens.
At the same time the Central Electoral Commission said that there were practically no violations and that the opposition is responsible for those that were registered.
The Central Electoral Commission also criticized the US Secretary of State's statement and advised her "to pay more attention to internal issues."
However many people in Russia agree that the elections were neither transparent nor fair. Some 10 thousand people gathered yesterday in the center of Moscow to protest against violations. Hundreds of opposition activists were arrested after the event. Many reporters, including representatives of Reuters and Bloomberg, were also detained but then freed, Ilya Barabanov, a correpondent of The New Times magazine, told Ekho Moskvy.
Famous blogger Alexey Navalny was among those who were arrested.
Russia's elections weren't fair - US
2565 views
