SPAIN’S prime minister has said he is confident his government could handle any outside attempts to tamper with the election he called in Catalonia for next month.
Mariano Rajoy declined to give details on what security measures Spain would take to prevent or counter electronic interference with next month’s regional election, but said “people will vote with complete liberty”.
Spanish defence minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal said on Monday that “many actions” to mount a misinformation campaign to destabilise Catalonia had “come from Russian territory” and elsewhere in recent months.
However, both Cospedal and Rajoy said Spain had no indication the Russian government was involved.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed insinuations of Russian meddling in Catalonia as unsubstantiated.
“We consider these accusations unfounded,” Peskov said, adding Spain’s concerns sounded like a “continuation of the hysteria in the US and some other countries”.
Speaking during a visit to Belarus, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov also rejected the idea that efforts to undermine other countries’ elections were originating in his country.
“A possible explanation is that in capitals where such accusations come from, be it Madrid or London, there are plenty of unresolved domestic problems,” said Lavrov.
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