MOSCOW, September 21./TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not record any threats to security or major provocations at the polling stations opened abroad for the Russian legislative elections, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Tuesday.
"In some countries - I am talking about the Netherlands, the US, in particular the Consulate General in Houston, there were demonstrations, pickets by supporters of the so-called non-systemic opposition, that did not affect the functioning of the polling stations abroad," the diplomat said.
"I am not talking about the situation in Ukraine, this is already chronic. Everything went as normal generally. No major provocations were reported. There were no security threats to the foreign missions either," Zakharova added.
Over 192,000 Russians voted in the State Duma elections at all earlier designated polling stations abroad, the diplomat noted. "For comparison - there were 205,200 people in 2016 and 474,400 people in the 2018 presidential election," she said. "I would like to draw attention to a major difference - we are talking about the situation of the expression of will amid the pandemic. Every country has its own restrictions, but despite this our foreign missions have coped with this task," the diplomat stressed.
She said the legislative elections "were held with maximum transparently and openness for the general public". "Voting at the foreign polling stations were monitored by a large number of observers of all categories - political parties, parliamentary candidates, from the Russian Civic Chamber. There were some insignificant claims from them also. They were looked into and respective explanations were given. International observers also worked at the polling stations, in particular from the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. There were no remarks from them," Zakharova added.
Elections to the 8th Russian State Duma (lower house) were held over a period of three days - on September 17, 18 and 19. After processing 100% of the voting results, the nation’s ruling party, United Russia, clinched 49.82% of the ballots on the party list to the Russian State Duma, according to the Central Election Commission’s website. The Communist Party came in second (18.93%), while the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia reaped 7.55%, A Just Russia — For Truth gained 7.46% and New People got 5.32%. All these five parties broke through the 5% barrier to enter the State Duma.