‘No choice’ with Putin
WEST: PRESIDENT’S ELECTION SLAMMED AS ‘NOT FREE AND FAIR’ ‘It has been based on repression and intimidation.’
Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s re-election for a new six-year term was not “free and fair”, with genuine opposition crushed and international observers absent, the EU’s foreign policy chief said yesterday.
“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” Josep Borrell told journalists in Brussels.
A subsequent joint statement from all 27 European Union countries said Russians had been denied a “real choice” after all candidates opposed to the war in Ukraine were excluded.
The EU condemned the staging of the vote in regions of Ukraine occupied by Moscow and said “it does not and will never recognise either the holding of these socalled ‘elections’ in the territories of Ukraine or their results”.
But the bloc did not heed a call from the widow of leading Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny not to recognise Putin as the legitimate president of Russia.
The Kremlin said yesterday Yulia Navalnaya “broke away from the motherland” and has lost her Russian “roots”.
“There are many people who... have completely broken away from the motherland,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Yulia Navalnaya, whom you mentioned, belongs to this group of people who lose their roots, lose their ties to the motherland, lose their understanding of the motherland.”
Borrell said EU ministers meeting in Brussels were expected to impose sanctions on prison officials involved in Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison colony last month.
Diplomats told AFP the sanctions were set to target 33 individuals and two entities.
The Kremlin yesterday praised Putin’s landslide re-election, saying it showed mass backing for “his path” for Russia.
“A perfect result for incumbent President Putin ... and the most eloquent confirmation of the support of the people of our country for their president and consolidation around his path,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock dismissed Putin’s re-election as a vote “without choice” after all genuine opposition was crushed.
“The election in Russia was an election without a choice.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said: “Our older brother has triumphed, which bodes well for the world”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the result as illegitimate. “Everyone in the world understands that this person, like many others throughout history, has become sick with power and will stop at nothing to rule forever,” he said.
Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron said the “illegal” elections featured “a lack of choice for voters and no independent OSCE monitoring”, adding: “This is not what free and fair elections look like.”