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President Vladimir Putin: Good Day, dear colleagues and friends,

First of all, I want to thank you for joint work over the last period of time, especially during the election campaign of President of the Russian Federation.

And in general, in recent years we have had a lot of work. Pre-election campaigns and election campaigns on the territory of the Russian Federation essentially never stop. One is replaced by another. These are parliamentary, Presidential, and regional elections, on several levels: municipal elections and on the level of Russian Federation subjects – to regional parliaments and heads of regions.

And I must say that this, of course, is the most striking manifestation of democracy in our country. There have been a lot of debates and fights over the law on political parties. The central election commission took the most active part in preparing the project of this legislative document, and I think that we made the right choice to consolidate political parties.

Small political associations have the right to exist, and we will support them. But if we are talking about political parties which aspire to influence municipalities, regions or the entire country, these should of course be serious, solid and competent parties which have wide support from Russian citizens. And in this sense, I think that the experience of recent months and years confirms that this choice was correct. There are now 46 parties left on the political stage which have the right to put candidates forward. This is quite sufficient for voters to be able to make their choice.

This is the first thing I wanted to say. And I want to stress – in future we will work on consolidating the multi-party system in the country. The second thing I want to mention is organization of your work throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation. A great deal has also been done here recently. And a great deal has been done by the Central Election Commission, both in the administration of the organisation, and in the technical and technological organization of work of election campaigns and the election process as such. The recent experience in using the latest technology shows that this is of course justified. It is effective, fast and reliable. Everything that takes place during voting is soon seen by millions of voters. I think this does not just have a positive result technologically, but also politically. It shows that elections in our country are organized at a high administrative, technical and political level – I want to stress this especially.

There is of course something that we need to continue working on. I mean work with observers. Above all, work with observers from political parties. There should not be any errors here. If you or I receive information that someone is not allowed to participate in the electoral process somewhere, that documents are not issued on time and so on, then we need to respond to these things quickly and effectively, and react accordingly.

On the whole, I repeat, in recent years the election system in the Russian Federation has become much stronger. And I want to stress this once more: it is my firm conviction that this is a great achievement by the Central Election Commission and all your colleagues who work in the enormous territory of the Russian Federation. In a territory with such a large population clearly, it is no easy task, to organize the election process clearly, comprehensibly, quickly and transparently in the political sense.

I want to congratulate you on this, and express my hope that we will continue to work in this collective spirit in future.