Commenting the results of the elections of the state Duma, the press Secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov, said that “would be welcomed the higher turnout,” said the correspondent . However, he refused to consider the resulting low turnout.
“We must not belittle the importance of the numbers we have. It can not be called low. The vast majority of European countries the turnout is much lower,” — said the press Secretary of the head of state.
According to Peskov, the turnout reflects “the proportion of the population that participates in the political process. He also agreed that in the cities the turnout was lower than the national average. “Again, this in no way affects either the results of the election, nor for their credibility”, he said.
It is obvious that the vast majority participated in the election expressed support for President Putin has received “such an impressive vote of confidence from the people of the country,” Peskov said.
The difference between election results and exit polls data FOM and VTSIOM, according to Peskov, can be explained simply. “The preliminary results that gives the CEC is the real figure. And Tom and forecast VTsIOM — a certain assumptions based on certain algorithms,” said he. According to Peskov, there is no doubt that all the reports of irregularities “will be taken”.
The night before, President Vladimir Putin said that the turnout at the election in 2016 is not the biggest, but high, and the result of “United Russia” is good. “Indeed, people showed civic position. It lies in the turnout, it’s not the biggest that we saw in the previous election campaign, but it is high. And for “United Russia”, of course, the result is important in the same way as for any party, this is a good result”, — Putin said at the headquarters of “United Russia”. The President joked that he watched his video message with a request to the Russian citizens to come to polling stations, and myself is tired. “The news looked back, the two looked up, then think: “well, it is necessary to remove me already from the screens, but I myself is tired,” the President said, and laughed.
