[...] The head of Russian diplomacy called the US electoral system one of the most “archaic” in the world on Thursday, after media announced the victory of Joe Biden, which was rejected by Donald Trump.
“They have probably the most archaic electoral system in existence, when compared to other important countries of the world,” Sergey Lavrov declared during a press conference. The Russian Foreign Minister criticized above all the indirect nature of the election of the president, who is chosen by electoral college delegates appointed by universal suffrage, something that is referred to as second-level elections.
According to this system, the winner is not the one who gets the most votes at the national level, but the one who wins the electoral college, made up of 270 delegates from all the states in the US. “If Americans are willing to live by this tradition that considerably deforms the will of the people… let them do so,” said Lavrov.
Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Foreign Minister indicated that Moscow would only congratulate the winner of the election after the publication of the official results. “Congratulations are sent before the publication of the results only when there is no litigation,” said the Russian minister.
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"Congratulations are sent even before the official results are announced when there is no dispute when the other side recognizes their opponents' victory. Just as it was in 2016 when Obama recognized Trump's victory. Then no one had any questions. Now such questions remain, so we need to wait for the official announcement", TASS quotes the minister as saying.
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"As for congratulations, I do wonder why so much attention is paid to it. Congratulations will be offered after the election results have been officially published. This did not happen in the USA [yet]. All congratulations received so far are based on the projections of CNN, ABC, Social Media, but especially [based] on reports from the leading US media. If it is traditional for someone to send state congratulations for such reasons, there is nothing we can do about it, but we have a different approach. We should wait for an official statement."
The minister also drew attention to different positions within the USA. He pointed out that even the US State Department has not yet recognized the election results. He said:
"If you heard the statement of [US Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo, you know that the State Department has not yet recognized the US elections as legitimate. Pompeo called for a wait until the vote count is complete."
The Russian minister called the US electoral system "one of the most archaic" in the larger countries.
According to Lavrov, under Biden's presidency, interstate relations between Russia and the United States would not change much. US foreign policy would be similar to that of former President Barack Obama. The diplomat also stressed that "the United States is deeply divided", as the results of the vote show.
