A Russian election official said on Friday less than one-fifth of voter complaints over alleged electoral violations during March’s presidential polls has been confirmed.
Of the1,564 complaints registered by the Central Election Commission, only 268 “were confirmed,” Sergei Danilenko told reporters in Moscow.
Danilenko said the complaints concerned breaches of voting procedure by local election officials and campaiging irregularities in the run-up to the March 4 polls, which were won by Vladimir Putin.
He also complained that the election commission was “snowed under with pseudo-complaints,” many of them regarding its decision to ban unregistered opposition Volya party leader Svetlana Peunova from participating in the election.
Putin’s landslide victory was marred by allegations of fraud and the vote was widely criticized by international observers.
He was sworn in for a third term as president in a lavish ceremony in the Kremlin on Monday after four years as prime minister.
Opposition protests which began on the eve of Putin’s inauguraton on May 6 are extending into their sixth day as of Friday.