- Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declared Russia’s democracy “the very best” on the earth.
- The feedback got here 19 days after the dying of Putin’s highest-profile home rival, Alexey Navalny.
- Navalny died in jail, and Russian elections are extensively considered something however free and honest.
Russia’s democracy is the very best on the earth and it will not tolerate criticism of it, the Kremlin’s prime spokesperson mentioned on Wednesday.
Talking at a youth pageant, Dmitry Peskov mentioned: “We’ll now not tolerate criticism of our democracy and claims that it’s not what it needs to be.”
“Our democracy is the very best, and we are going to proceed to construct it,” he mentioned, per Ukrainska Pravda’s translation.
Russia’s democracy just isn’t, in reality, the very best, and is way from free and honest.
Peskov’s feedback got here 19 days after the suspicious dying in captivity of opposition politician Alexey Navalny, arguably the one credible determine within the nation’s political system.
Russian presidential elections, set to start in 10 days, are additionally extensively considered a foregone conclusion.
Three candidates are set to face off in opposition to President Vladimir Putin, however some have already volunteered to not criticize him, state media reported.
One candidate who stood on an anti-war platform, Boris Nadezhdin, was disqualified over alleged irregularities in his endorsements, The Moscow Instances reported.
Related Press
Navalny, whose 2020 poisoning is extensively believed to be linked to the Kremlin, was buried on March 1 in a highly-policed ceremony.
A number of attendees had been then arrested, The Telegraph reported, citing native reviews.
Russia has slid within the rankings of worldwide democracies. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked its democracy 114th out of 167 international locations in 2023 — beneath Nicaragua and Venezuela. And US suppose tank Freedom Home labeled it “Not Free.”
It scored Russia 4 out of 40 within the class of political rights, noting that elections should not free and honest, the federal government operates with no transparency, and there are few safeguards in opposition to corruption.
Earlier this month, Russian journalist Roman Ivanov was sentenced to seven years in jail for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine.
