Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has denounced Russia’s “sham” presidential election, staged amid unprecedented restrictions of civil and political rights, calling it “a tragic farce”.
“Law cannot arise from lawlessness, and internationally respectable legitimacy cannot arise from coercion, oppression and fraud,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, we do not consider and do not call this falsified and sham procedure an election, because unfortunately, it is more like a tragic farce.”
Provisional results of the presidential election held in Russia over the weekend show Vladimir Putin winning some 87 percent of the vote, an unprecedentedly good result for the strongman who has ruled Russia since 1999.
According to Lithuania’s foreign minister, the voting was neither free nor fair, nor did it meet any standards of democracy and the rule of law.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry on Monday also issued a statement on “the imitation of elections in Russia”.
“As Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, the Russian authorities, which organised an imitation of electoral procedure, took indiscriminate reprisals and unlawful actions against the opposition and representatives of the civil society, suppressed the voice of independent media, and, in breach of international commitments, failed to invite observers from the OSCE/ODIHR to monitor the elections,” the ministry said.
“The death of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny under mysterious circumstances in the Russian Arctic prison just before this sham election that has shocked the world, the unjustified imprisonment of other political opponents of the regime, the persecution of people who hold different opinions in Russia and even abroad – all of this reaffirms the Russian government’s desire to silence anyone who dares to fight for freedom and democracy,” it said.
“The new ‘mandate’ for Vladimir Putin under these circumstances lacks any democratic legitimacy.”
The ministry also said that Lithuania, along with the European Union as a whole, does not recognise and will never recognise the voting results from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Lithuania also strongly condemns the bogus procedure in the Russian occupied regions of Tskhinvali and Abkhazia in Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova, organised against the will and without the consent of the governments there. This is yet another despicable assault on the sovereignty of neighbouring countries,” it said.
Putin faced no genuine competition in the presidential election. All of the 71-year-old’s major opponents are dead, in prison or exiled, and the crackdown in Russia continues on anyone who publicly opposes his rule or Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The former KGB agent has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999, and the weekend’s election will keep him in power until at least 2030.
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