Zyuganov Comments on Election Results 🗳️

(4 Mar 2012) SHOTLIST
1. Mid pan of Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party leader, entering room to hold news conference
2. Close up of cameraman
3. Wide pan of news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party leader:
"We don't recognise the elections. We do not consider them legitimate, fair or transparent. And in saying this, I am telling you my official opinion. I don't see any sense in congratulating anyone and with this type of elections everyone ends up a loser. In this case I officially express my point of view - I don't see any point to congratulate someone because everybody, without exception, loses from the election of this kind."
5. Close up of cameraman
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party leader:
"The country has become a mafia state, and this includes the state system of vertical power. These results need to be knocked out with all possible means. The election commission which is nine tenths staffed by representatives of United Russia which has not taken anything into account."
7. Mid of Zyuganov leaving news conference
STORYLINE
The Communist Party's presidential candidate, Gennady Zyuganov condemned Sunday's vote as not "legitimate, fair or transparent."
Zyuganov was trailing far behind Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Russian presidential election with some 18 percent of the vote, according to exit polls.
Putin claimed victory before tens of thousands of cheering supporters, even as the opposition and independent observers insisted the vote had been marred by widespread violations.
Zyuganov told journalists at a news conference in Moscow that Russia had become a "mafia state".
His campaign chief Ivan Melnikov claimed that the authorities set up numerous additional polling stations and alleged that hundreds of thousands of voters cast ballots at the ones in Moscow alone in an apparent attempt to rig the vote.
Golos, Russia's leading independent elections watchdog, also said it had received numerous reports of "carousel voting," in which busloads of voters are driven around to cast ballots multiple times.
The other candidates - nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Sergei Mironov of the socialist Just Russia party and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov - were all in single digits according to the exit polls.
If thousands of claims of violations made by independent observers and Putin's foes are confirmed, they would undermine the legitimacy of his victory and fuel protests.
The opposition is gearing up for a massive rally in downtown Moscow on Monday.

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