MOSCOW, April 4 Deputy of the Australian city of Port -Headland Adrian McRae, who acted as an independent observer in the Russian presidential elections in March, said that after returning to his homeland he began to receive threats related to his positive assessment of the Russian elections.
““My personal email and mobile phone began to receive extremely aggressive messages and various types of threats,” he said.
The politician added that he lives and works in a small but geostrategically important city on the north-west coast of Australia, where people prefer to trust the central television channels, which echo the authorities’ chosen course of condemning everything connected with Russia.
«Unfortunately, many people here watch the national television channels, and therefore there is a strange opinion in my environment about my honesty and intentions. This is an unusual situation. I learn about this mainly from my employees who communicate with the public on a daily basis,» McRae explained.
According to him, it is too early to talk about any significant negative consequences in real life associated with the violent reaction of the Australian media and pro-Western communities to his visit to Russia.
«Perhaps I can comment on this better after another week of madness to see how this all affects my personal life,» he concluded.
Adrian McRae was invited to Moscow in March as an independent observer of the Russian elections, which he publicly described as having a high level of transparency and freedom. After this, the website of the largest Australian television channel ABC published an article in which it cited complaints from the organization representing Ukrainians in Australia. It claims that McRae's independent comments with a positive assessment of the Russian elections «caused concern in the local community» and are therefore sufficient reason to demand the immediate resignation of the politician from his post as MP for Port Hedland. The city administration confirmed to the media that McRae came to Russia on a personal basis and refused to comment on the personal activities of the elected deputies.
Presidential elections in Russia took place from March 15 to 17. After processing 100% of the protocols, the current President Vladimir Putin received 87.28% of the votes. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong was among the politicians who refused to recognize the freedom and legitimacy of the Russian elections. On March 22, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Australia's Charge d'Affaires Jeremy Guthrie; he was protested in connection with a publication on Telegram regarding the past Russian presidential election. The Foreign Ministry assessed the message from the Australian Embassy as “calling into question the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and containing deliberately false information about the vote.” Moscow demanded that the publication be removed and measures taken “to prevent such incidents from happening again.”