Head of Russia’s Central Election Commission: Russia doesn’t need democracy ‘in the Western sense’

Democracy in the West is “rule not by the majority, but by the minority,” says the chair of Russia’s Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova. She adds that Russia doesn’t need democracy in the Westerns sense of the word. 

Pamfilova’s remarks came during a presentation at the Territoriya Smyslov (Territory of Meaning) forum, a yearly educational event, after a participant asked her to comment on presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov’s recent remarks on democracy. 

In early August, the Kremlin spokesperson told the New York Times that “our presidential election is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy” and that current president Vladimir Putin will win the 2024 election with “more than 90 percent of the vote.”

“For me, democracy is just a mechanism, a method for organizing power through elections. What happens now in the West is democracy not as the rule of the majority, but the rule of the minority. I would agree with Dmitry Sergeyevich [Peskov], we definitely don’t have the kind of system that exists in the West and we don’t need it,” Pamfilova said in response to the question. 

The head of the Central Election Commission also called Western democracy “degraded.” She said that the Central Election Commission is “one of the most effective departments” in the country. “We solve new problems as efficiently as possible with minimal costs. I think many departments should take a lesson from us,” she added.

In a July meeting with Putin Pamfilova called the 2024 presidential election “our electoral front line.”