Kokoshin: PACE and OSCE claims were expected

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“Claims on the nature of the parliamentary vote to the State Duma on behalf of PACE and OSCE representatives were anticipated long before the vote,” chairman of the Duma’s committee for the CIS affairs, United Russia’s General Council member Andrei Kokoshin said in an interview to REGNUM.

Kokoshin reminded that PACE and OSCE representatives have been censuring Duma’s elections for months. Kokoshin says that the western institutions faced much difficulty in finding faults in the Russian electoral legislation, their mechanism, and the way the vote was actually conducted.

According to the deputy, PACE and OSCE officials also could not ignore evaluations of many international observers who positively assessed the vote based on internationally accepted democratic standards.

“They ended up inventing all sorts of allegations about breaching ‘ethical conduct code’ on behalf the supreme authorities in our country – allegations that are obviously hypocritical,” Kokoshin says. “Such allegations are yet another manifestation of the double standards policy actively employed by many western politicians and political institutions against Russia, who is more confidently asserting herself as a modern great nation.”

Speaking of the vote’s preliminary results, Mr. Kokoshin said: “The result will allow United Russia to gain momentum in building innovational economy in Russia, developing industries that will ensure both our national security and our national competitiveness in the globalizing economy.”