The State Duma opened its session with a discussion of past and upcoming elections

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, opening the autumn session of the Duma at the plenary meeting on September 19, noted that the single voting day held in September was special this year: residents of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions elected deputies to regional authorities for the first time.

“The high turnout shows how interested people were in participating in the elections,” he said, adding that “all the machinations and attempts of Washington and Brussels to disrupt the elections failed.”

The leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, who spoke next, expressed dissatisfaction with the past elections. According to the communist, in Khakassia, where the representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Valentin Konovalov, won the gubernatorial elections, there were “8,000 dirty stories,” and only after he presented the materials to the president, a meeting was held, “which predetermined the more or less normal holding of elections there.” .

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Zyuganov said, does not recognize the results of the vote in the Altai Territory, where the State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Maria Prusakova “was not allowed to participate in the elections” (did not pass the municipal filter), as well as the elections of the legislative assembly in the Rostov region, where they continue, in his words, “to hold scam.” “Even in Ivanovo they followed this path,” he added.

Zyuganov was the first to speak at the meeting about the presidential elections in 2024. “We are holding this session in conditions where we are obliged to prepare the presidential elections and are obliged to conduct them in such a way that everyone – not only in the country, but also on the planet – feels the unity and our historical decisions, because we are electing not just a president, but a supreme commander in chief,” he said from the podium.

In addition, he advised the president to “show the same determination and courage as he showed in the fight against terrorism in the Caucasus,” and added that “we need victory this year.”

LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky responded to Zyuganov that the election of deputies to the parliament of the Ivanovo region, where the LDPR became second after United Russia in terms of the number of mandates, overtaking the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, is not a disgrace, but “people voted.” He also noted the improvement of the party’s position in elections in the Caucasus, where the LDPR “always had very restrained results.”

Slutsky also recalled the presidential elections, saying that the election campaign has already begun and that “processes are now underway that require unity.”

The head of the “A Just Russia – For Truth” faction, Sergei Mironov, avoided the topic of elections in his speech, but reiterated the need to return the previous retirement age and index pensions for working pensioners. In addition, he noted the increase in crime from migrants and proposed introducing a visa regime with Central Asian countries.

The leader of the “New People” Alexey Nechaev, although he noted that party observers “recorded ugly moments in specific areas,” but believes that the gubernatorial elections were “absolutely legitimate,” and in the elections of constituencies “one must be able to win and lose.”

The head of the United Russia faction, Vladimir Vasiliev, closing the speeches of the faction leaders, said that, despite the fact that some people are not satisfied with the election results, they are “determined by the people,” and called on the parties to work together and better behind closed doors, and “not lay everything out on the surface.”