MOSCOW, Sept 15: Electoral experts from Germany, France and Italy will travel to Russia to observe and review the voting process during this week’s elections to the lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, a Russian public oversight official said.
Alexey Peskov, executive director of the Independent Public Monitoring Association and co-chair of the Russian Civic Chamber’s coordinating council for public oversight of voting, told Sputnik that experts and observers from countries across the world are expected to attend the elections.
“Representatives from literally every continent are expected to attend the elections as experts or observers. Our list of those who have expressed interest includes experts from countries such as Germany, Hungary, France, and, for instance, Italy,” Peskov said.
He described the visiting delegates as experienced electoral experts interested in Russia’s voting practices and said their views did not necessarily correspond with those of the political establishments in their respective countries.
“We welcome everyone. We will try to demonstrate how our public oversight institutions function and how the public oversight system is structured, a system which, incidentally, has no equivalent in the world,” Peskov said.
Elections to the ninth convocation of the State Duma are scheduled to be held from September 18 to 20.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the upcoming elections as an important domestic political event.
