Leonid Slutsky: “Work continues to boil on the anti-Russian front in the US House of Representatives. Congressmen Stephen Cohen (Democrat from Tennessee) and Joe Wilson (Republican from South Carolina) have introduced a draft resolution according to which the United States should not recognize Vladimir Putin as President of Russia if he remains in office after May 7, 2024.
What to say? Another provocation, populism and political PR, but clearly not from great intelligence and any competence. If the draft resolution is adopted in the lower house of Congress, even with its recommendatory nature, the process of the possible restoration of Russian-American inter-parliamentary cooperation (and cooperation in general) will be dealt a serious blow.
As for the content: overseas colleagues somehow see violations in the adoption of amendments to the Constitution of Russia and call a number of them “illegitimate”, interpreting some provisions in their favor. Messrs. Cohen and Wilson, apparently, believe that they have much more authority than the entire Russian people and “they know better.”
And then the legislators repeat the mantras that voting on amendments to the Constitution took place in a pandemic, opponents of the amendments did not have the opportunity to speak, and the process itself was non-transparent. I would like to remind you that voting in Russia was carried out within seven days with the maximum coverage of voters and the use of unique digital opportunities, and experts, including international ones, did not record any serious violations. At the same time, the question arises: have the American congressmen not confused anything? It seems that they are rather describing the presidential elections held in their country. It was there that we observed voting by mail, when it was possible to send a ballot in advance, suspicious leaps in the count of votes, and those who publicly opposed the results ended up behind bars.
For a start, the authors of this opus would have to deal with the last presidential elections in the United States and their own archaic electoral system. In Russia, no one stormed parliament because of disagreement with the voting results. We ourselves, without blood and outside prompts, are able to determine which Constitution we should live by, how and which President to elect! We won’t ask the American Congress for sure. And yes: calls for the non-recognition of Vladimir Putin as the head of state if he decides to run for this post and wins the elections is a direct, unceremonious interference in the internal affairs of Russia. And we have never allowed this and, I dare to assure, will not allow anyone. “
