Vyacheslav Volodin, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, spoke at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club and answered questions by members of the opposition about the “municipal filter” and transparency at the recent elections
Vyacheslav Volodin, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, spoke at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club and answered questions by members of the opposition about the “municipal filter” and transparency at the recent elections, political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko, who attended the meeting, told RIA Novosti.
Mr. Minchenko said that Volodin was most cooperative with members of the opposition, including Vladimir Ryzhkov from the RPR-Parnas and Gennady Gudkov from the Just Russia party. “All members of the opposition had an opportunity to ask their questions, although many foreign experts also wanted to contribute,” the political analyst said.
He said they discussed the issue of the municipal filter and that the opposition’s arguments did not seem very convincing, whereas Volodin’s did. He said that change “should start at municipal level.” Volodin commended State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov for his decision to run for mayor in Novosibirsk and urged Gudkov, who participated in the gubernatorial elections in the Moscow Region, to run for mayor in one of the regional towns.
Vladimir Ryzhkov asked Volodin about transparency at the elections in Moscow and Yekaterinburg and named seven regions where problems were reported during the elections, Yevgeny Minchenko said.
