Russian election authorities hesitant over inviting OSCE observers to presidential polls

The Russian Central Election Commission may not invite international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to the presidential elections in March, a Russian business daily said on Tuesday. The Kommersant newspaper said that the Central Election Commission was disappointed with the OSCE’s remarks about December’s parliamentary elections in Russia. OSCE officials, who gave a press conference a day after the elections, said that the polls were slanted in favor of the ruling United Russia party: the election administration lacked independence, most media were partial and state authorities interfered unduly at different levels. The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which is responsible for organizing the observation mission at the polls, is going to send at least 200 observers to Russia but it has not received an invitation from Moscow yet, ODIHR’s spokesman Jens Eschenbaecher told Kommersant. “We would like to send the same number of observers to Russia for the presidential elections as to the parliamentary polls. Sure, if we receive an invitation. We would like to receive it on time, two months prior to the elections…in order to have time to start a long-term mission,” the paper quoted Eschenbaecher as saying. “Let’s discuss it later,” the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov told the Kommersant, referring to the invitations for the OSCE observers. He said that the Central Election Commission would decide whether to invite the observers or not after the ODIHR unveils the detailed report about the Russian parliamentary elections. ODIHR report that is due to be published in mid-January, does not contain the words ‘falsification’ of ‘juggling’, referring to the elections’ procedure, the daily said. “Thus our elections are recognized as legitimate by default. It is the most important thing,” Kommersant quoted an unknown source in Russia’s Foreign Ministry. The results of the Russian parliamentary polls have already sparked a wave of strong criticism from tens of thousands of Russians who went to the streets to protest against the alleged violations and vote frauds that gave the pro-Kremlin United Russia party its small majority, leading them to victory in the elections. Russian authorities deny massive fraud, saying the possible violations did not exceed 0.5 percent of the whole votes.