President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia’s political system is Russia’s own affair and not that of its foreign partners.
“If they observe elections, violations, it is one thing, but the issue of Russia’s political system is not their business,” Medvedev said at the meeting with the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov. “Soon they will tell us how we should write our Constitution.”
The president’s remarks came on the heels of the harsh criticism of Russia’s Sunday legislative elections voiced by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton said on Tuesday that Russia’s vote was “neither free nor fair” and called for investigating complaints about election violations.
Russians voted Sunday to elect the State Duma, the lower chamber of the parliament. The ruling United Russia party, led by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, collected 49.3 percent of the vote with 99.99 percent of ballots counted as of late Tuesday afternoon.
International and domestic vote observers claim to have collected an extensive record of vote fraud.
Medvedev’s statement echoes the so-called “sovereign democracy” rhetoric that was popular during the presidency of his predecessor Putin, which sought to bar foreign influence from domestic policies, including civil rights issues. Medvedev, who topped the United Russia ticket in these elections, has spoken against the “sovereign democracy” notion in the past.
