Dear Editor,
With reference to your editorial titled ‘Russia’s Putin under challenge’ published in the December 28 issue of Stabroek News, we would like to bring to your attention the following information.
Six days after national and regional elections were held in Guyana, elections for the State Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) took place. According to the final results announced, four out of seven political parties that had competed received seats in the Parliament. The majority of votes – 49.32 % – were cast for United Russia, which thus received 238 seats in the Parliament. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation secured 92 seats, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, 56 seats and Fair Russia, 64 seats.
The voter turnout during the elections in Russia was 60.21%, which is 4.5% more than during the elections in 2003.
United Russia, the party in power, lost a small percentage of votes. This reflects the overall trend of this year’s elections results with parties in power in other European countries.
International and local observers recognized that the elections had been fair and democratic. The complaints filed by the parties about violations did not lead to a review of the results of the elections and a vote recount.
In Moscow and other Russian cities the opposition organized rallies to protest against the results. According to the police reports and witnesses they were carried out in a peaceful manner without any violence.
President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev has called the rallies a manifestation of the democratic right of people to convene and express their opinion.
The United Russia, which is led by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, is preparing for the upcoming presidential elections on March 4, 2012. Vladimir Putin is the party’s presidential candidate.
On December 22, 2011 the President of Russia in his annual Address to the Federal Assembly indicated his intention for reform of the political processes in Russia. One of them is the democratization of election procedures.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has taken a decision to install web cameras (among other measures) at all the polling stations to eliminate chances for possible violations. It is also with great regret we noted that on page 4 of the Stabroek News issue on December 28, 2011 there appeared a Reuters article, ‘Putin ejects Kremlin “puppet master” after protests.’ The article does not represent a true reflection of events and portrays Mr Surkov as a victim. It should be noted that Mr Surkov received a very prominent and an important position as a Deputy Prime Minister responsible for modernization of the country. This fact that modernization is one of the Government’s priorities negates the statement in the editorial about “Putin’s inclination to substantially rest the economy on Russia’s oil and natural gas productive base.”
The misleading reports of the British news agency may cause one to come to wrong conclusions about the processes taking place in Russia. It is thus compelling us to advise journalists in Guyana and representatives of the mass media to make balanced judgments, which can be made by reviewing the information on Russian news agencies’ websites prepared in English (http://www.itar-tass.com/en/, http://www.interfax.com/, http://english.ruvr.ru/). Should there be any need for commenting on the events in Russia, you can also call the Russian Embassy and we will be ready to respond to any inquiries.
Yours faithfully,
Denis Kopyl
Press Attache of the Embassy of
the Russian Federation in Guyana
