According to the observers who followed the elections taking place in Russia, State authorities did not assume a "neutral attitude". "Large resort to administrative resources, such as the use of State infrastructures and the staff registered in the list of public employees, in favour of United Russia", represented "a clear violation" of European democratic standards. Furthermore, "most of governors" were in the lists of United Russia: "This is misleading for electors, since it is improbable that those officials abandon their high offices to join Duma". And more: "The active role played by the head of State in favour of United Russia, though he wasn’t a member of the party, changed parliamentary elections into a referendum for the president". Apart from the Putin chapter, the objections of the COE and OSCE concentrated on the Russian information system: "The media, and in particular, TV, were under actually total control by the State stated the international observers; – during the campaign, President Putin and United Russia obtained the vast majority of media coverage". Therefore, "the media getting State subsidies did not respect the public mandate to offer objective programmes, and that made it very hard to obtain an overall impartial vision of political parties". (To be continued)
