Zee Beam News

Dec. 04, 2007 - Kommersant - Russia’s parliamentary elections, where President Vladimir Putin’s party won a landslide victory, were unfair and failed to meet many standards and commitments of parliamentary elections, observers from the OSCE and the Council of Europe said Monday when commenting on the State Duma elections. The evaluation was a political order, Russia’s Central Election Commission rebuffed. Led by Luc Van den Brande and Goran Lennmarker, the election observers of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and of the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE and the Nordic Council’s parliamentarians met Monday morning to mull over the State Duma elections in Russia and elaborate a joint statement. The observers mentioned good organization of elections and technical improvement in their final evaluation. At the same time, they concluded that elections were not fair and undemocratic and “failed to meet many commitments and standards for democratic elections.” The observers were particularly agitated about the consolidation of government’s and political forces, i.e. by the office abuse. They were equally disappointed by a new election code that hindered political pluralism and by crackdown on the opposition coupled with the media coverage strongly in favor of United Russia. Leaders of the European Union have refrained from official comments so far. Russia’s election authority bluntly rejected the accusations. “Negative evaluation of the State Duma elections by Europe’s international observers is a political order,” said Igor Borisov from the Central Election Commission. “Political advisability dictated from over the ocean prevailed over the principles of objective and reasoned activities that should govern international observers.”