RUSSIA: Russia's President Putin says he will prevent foreign meddling in election

Record ID: 345912

  • Title: RUSSIA: Russia's President Putin says he will prevent foreign meddling in election
  • Date: 29th November 2007
  • Summary: KREMLIN TOWER WITH SNOW
  • Embargoed: 14th December 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6T9GSFYE39ITRDA5NAMD23OEL
  • Story Text: Vladimir Putin pledges to oversee honest elections, and warns against outside interference, while his political opponent says Russia lacks "the slightest trace of democracy."
    President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (November 28) he would not allow foreign states to upset Russia's stability as the country prepared to vote in a Dec. 2 parliamentary election.

    "We have done everything to safeguard Russia from internal disturbances and to put it firmly on the track of evolutionary development," Putin told foreign diplomats and senior officials in a speech in the Kremlin.

    "And I am forced to repeat myself -- we will not allow this process to be changed from outside," he said.
    On Monday, Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine the ballot by influencing a decision by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) main election monitoring unit to pull out of the vote.
    Washington rejected the accusations, which followed other statements by Putin in which he said foreign countries were sponsoring his opponents in the election to weaken Russia and carry out "dirty tricks".
    The former KGB spy said his domestic opponents wanted to sow chaos in Russia and were "slinking" through embassies and counting on the support of foreign governments.

    "We know the value of true democracy and want to conduct elections that are honest, as transparent as possible and open," Putin said.
    "We are sure this is the way these elections will be," Putin said.
    But criticism is not only coming from outside Russia. At a press conference not far from the Kremlin, Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov on Wednesday (November 28) told journalists that there was no democracy in Russia.

    "There is not a slightest trace of democracy in Russia. It is a semi-police-state, where one man decides everything for everyone, where the Duma is just an addition of the presidential administration and a department of the government. We want a normal democracy and I think our party has done a lot to achieve this," Zyuganov said.
    He blamed pro-Kremlin officials for denying opposition parties equal access to mass media and said they all worked under tight orders to ensure as many votes for United Russia as possible.

    "The result they need is the following: to ensure a turnout of 65 to 70 percent, and from this turnout 70 percent should support Putin. That is the order they received.
    Because that will show that we have one national leader, that we can ignore the constitution and find an excuse for Putin to run for the third time,"
    Zyuganov said.
    Russia's Communists are expected to form the main opposition to United Russia in parliament, but the party has failed to widen its appeal since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    pp/jrc
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