Leonid Slutsky, first deputy chairman at State Duma’s Foreign Committee
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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OSCE, ODIHR Showed Double Standard at U.S. Election, Russia’s Lawmaker Said
International observers, for instance from OSCE/ODIHR, have manifested the double standard when avoiding to speak of violations at the U.S. presidential election, said Leonid Slutsky, first deputy chairman at State Duma’s Foreign Committee. Slutsky is in New York now, RIA Novosti reported.
“When the elections are being held in the post-Soviet territory, in the territory of Council of Europe, big numbers of international organizations are sending their observers. ODIHR that traditionally lambasts everything and everyone in the post-Soviet territory is the best example of double standard,” Slutsky specified.
“In the U.S. election, the criticism comes of its own, from those [the U.S. citizens] that see there are violations and one can even speak of illegitimacy in some places. But this voice is from inside, such political ventriloquy,” Slutsky said.
“Observers of OSCE, of same ODIHR, attended the election in the United States, but I haven’t heard their voices for some reason,” the lawmaker pointed out.
According to the U.S. media, right defending organizations and the election staff of Republican Sen John McCain, the violations were numerous at the presidential election of November 5. Quite a few electors in Nevada were threatened by phone that they would be arrested should they go to vote. The residents in Texas were urged to refrain from voting at large. The leaflets were distributed in Virginia and Louisiana, saying the republican electors would vote November 4 and the democrats would do it November 5. What’s more, there were cases when one and the same elector voted twice and the cases of votes cast by ghost electors.
“Those violations were numerous, we know,” Slutsky said.
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