NEW YORK, March 20./TASS/. Observers from various countries who oversaw the Russian presidential election did not find any violations during the voting, so the Kremlin has no need to further justify the results to anyone, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the US magazine Newsweek.
"All willing observers from other countries came to the election, could monitor the process with their own eyes and obtained all the necessary information. We are not going to justify ourselves in front of anybody," the presidential spokesman said in a statement.
Representatives from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE European security agency and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe were not invited "on purpose, because we regard their attempts to interfere in our internal affairs as unacceptable," he said.
Voting in the Russian presidential election took place over three days on March 15-17. The e-voting system was available in about one-third of Russian regions. With 100% of ballots counted, Russian incumbent President Vladimir Putin garnered 87.28% of the vote, according to data from the Russian Election Commission. The turnout of 77.44% was the highest ever in Russia’s modern history. Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) nominee Nikolay Kharitonov came in second with 4.31% of the vote, followed by New People party nominee Vladislav Davankov (3.85%). Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) nominee Leonid Slutsky was last with 3.2% of the vote.