With three weeks left for the March 2 presidential vote in
Russia, Europe's top election watchdog has rejected an offer to
send observers to monitor the nation's elections, intensifying
tensions tightened last December when it refused to monitor the
parliamentary elections.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Parliamentary Assembly and the election division, the Warsaw-based
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR)
decided Thursday not to monitor Russia's presidential vote next
month.
"We regret that circumstances prevent us from observing this
election," said Spencer Oliver, secretary general of the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly, claiming there are restrictions imposed by
Moscow on its observation mission.
"We made every effort in good faith to deploy our mission, even
under the conditions imposed by the Russian authorities," ODIHR's
Director Christian Strohal said in a statement.
"We have a responsibility to all 56 participating states to
fulfill our mandate, and the Russian Federation has created
limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election
observation in accordance with it," he said.
The ODIHR, which also stayed away from the Russian parliamentary
elections in December 2007 due to alleged restrictions, has been in
disputes with Russia for weeks over its observation missions in the
presidential election.
Russia has invited some 70 international observers from the
ODIHR and agreed that some observers could arrive in Russia this
week and the others mission start work on Feb. 20, an compromise
rejected by the OSCE's elections arm.
Moscow's diplomats have expressed surprise over OSCE's refusal,
saying Russia's elections pose not as an international problem that
requires the most active monitoring and support and Russia has been
unprecedentedly open to international election observation
teams.
"The ODIHR administration bluntly refused the compromise. They
did not give any coherent explanations to their position. We think
that such actions of the ODIHR are not acceptable," said Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin.
Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's
International Affairs Committee, said that he regrets the ODIHR's
decision but believes that the election will meet Russian and
international standards anyway.
"The ODIHR has once again tried to turn a simple situation into
a scandal and a provocation," Russian news agencies quoted him as
saying.
Russia regards OSCE's rejection as a "rejection of a
constructive dialogue on solving issues related to political rights
and freedoms, the reluctance to carry out its functions and failure
to live up to the obligations set out in ODIHR's mandate," Central
Elections Commission member Igor Borisov said in a comment
published by the CEC press service.
"We would not like elections to be turned into a tool of putting
political pressure on Russia, of yet another, traditional attempt
to interpret their results to somebody's liking," said Oleg
Morozov, deputy speaker of the State Duma, lower house of the
parliament.
Russia has also invited observers from the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as
from individual countries such as Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain,
the United States, Japan, Hungary, Mongolia and CIS member
states.
Russia officially set out its presidential campaign on Feb. 2,
with First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate
favored to win the race for the country's top job, succeeding his
close ally, incumbent President Vladimir Putin.
Candidates also include Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov,
head of the Russian Liberal-Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky
and Chairman of the Russian Democratic Party Andrei Bogdanov.
Two of those candidates, Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, have both
denounced OSCE's decision, saying it, however, will have no effect
on the real results of the elections.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2008)
