Leonid Slutsky: “The European Parliament put in the draft agenda of its autumn session a discussion of the report prepared by the Foreign Affairs Committee, with a recommendation to the European authorities to be ready not to recognize the legitimacy of the elections to the State Duma and significant“ conclusions ”regarding Russia’s further membership in international parliamentary organizations. Consideration of the issue is scheduled for September 14, that is, three days before the start of voting in Russia! Apparently, the MEPs are not very much embarrassed by the “cart before the horse”, they are already ready to issue their assessments in advance, and without any conclusions from the monitoring missions.
Moreover, the OSCE / ODIHR decided not to send a delegation of observers to Russia. And it did it, as we remember, for show, absolutely groundlessly and in line with the policy of “double standards”.
Against this background, a separate surprise was caused by the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to send only five people to Russia (10 people were invited). At the same time, we are not talking about full-fledged observation of the elections, it will be a kind of assessment mission.
Nevertheless, we hope that observers from the national parliaments of foreign states and inter-parliamentary organizations will certainly be present at the elections, invitations to which were sent through the lines of both chambers of the Federal Assembly. We have every right to count on independent (primarily from the Russophobic course of the collective West) and unbiased assessments, since the election campaign is conducted in accordance with all democratic standards, transparently and honestly.
And all calls not to recognize the legitimacy of the new convocation of the State Duma, especially those that sound in advance, should be regarded as nothing other than interference in the internal affairs of Russia. But we will not allow any outside force to influence the elections or try to speculate on this basis. “
