Teaching Comparative

Another take on election observers in Russia

And here's another way to write up the story about international observers and Russia's presidential election.

Could it be that Russians are reacting to monitoring in the same way than some Americans reacted to the suggestion that international observers should monitor U.S. elections?

This article was in The New York Times.

Russia Rebuffs Election Watchdog

"Russia said on Thursday it would not bow to ultimatums from Europe's main election watchdog in a dispute over monitoring next month's presidential vote.

"The monitoring issue has caused friction between Western governments, which want reassurances the vote will be free and fair, and the Kremlin which has rejected what it calls foreign interference in the election.

"Warsaw-based watchdog the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has said it may pull out of monitoring the election unless Russia eases restrictions it imposed on the scope of the observation mission.

"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters he regretted the stance of the OSCE body in talks with Russia.

"'ODIHR has been making public statements, the essence of which is that it has made its demands and if these are not met ODIHR will not come,' Lavrov said.

"'Let's put it this way -- in Russian, as well as in any other language, this is called an ultimatum. A country which respects itself accepts no ultimatums. We regret that this approach prevailed in ODIHR's stance.'...

"Western governments view ODIHR's verdicts as the best yardstick of whether elections in ex-Soviet states are fair. The European Union has urged Russia to remove what it called 'significant restrictions' on the monitoring mission.

"Officials in Moscow say they believe the watchdog is being manipulated by Western governments who are using it as a tool to attack Russia over its rights record..."

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Labels: concepts, elections, politics, Russia

posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:58 AM