International election watchdogs slam Russian polls

[Menydh]

International election watchdogs slam Russian polls

RIA Novosti
December 3, 2007

Top international observers said on Monday that elections to Russia's lower house had failed to meet European standards.

With 98% of Sunday's vote counted, preliminary results give the pro-Kremlin United Russia party 64.1%, the Communists 11.6%, the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party 8.2%, and the loyalist A Just Russia 7.8%.

A joint statement by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday's poll "was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections."

Goran Lennmarker, president of the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly, said Russia's new election law, which raised the threshold for entry to the State Duma from 5 to 7%, and also canceled "the against all" option and minimum voter turnout requirements, had created unequal conditions for smaller political parties, and therefore the elections could not be described as fair.

He also said opposition parties had been pressurized. Shortly before the polls, two anti-Putin meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg were dispelled by riot police and several opposition figures arrested. One of these, Garry Kasparov, was subsequently jailed for five days.

Referring to President Putin's decision in October to head the United Russia candidate list, Lennmarker said the Kremlin's virtual merger with the party was unacceptable and clearly violated international norms.

Another criticism leveled at United Russia was that the party had enjoyed almost unlimited access to funds, its election campaign dwarfing the attempts of other parties to gain a platform.

Central Moscow was dominated by United Russia adverts in the days before the election, with little or no sign of the existence of other parties.

The run-up to the Duma elections was marred by a dispute with the OSCE, after its main election monitoring arm refused to dispatch observers for the polls, citing restrictions and visa delays. Moscow in turn criticized "chaos" in the organization and reinvigorated calls for its reform.

Luc van den Brande, the chief Council of Europe delegate, added that the Duma polls were more of a referendum for President Vladimir Putin than a parliamentary election.

Igor Borisov of Russia's Central Election Commission said the OSCE and Council of Europe allegations were ungrounded and that the commission had not received any official reports from these organizations.

"I believe these conclusions were based on statements from those political leaders who were not satisfied with their parties' election results," Borisov said.

Kimmo Kiljunen, vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said earlier on Monday that the voting had been fair and democratic, but added that that was merely his personal opinion.

Observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russia-led alliance of former Soviet republics, stated on Monday in a report that the Duma elections had been democratic, free and transparent.


[source]

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

A joint statement by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday's poll "was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections."

... sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

Kimmo Kiljunen just said in evening news that the elections were held in Russian way.

[Gottslav]

The first elections I didn't take part in. This is not even funny anymore, a farсe beyond believable. "The against all" would be an option, otherwise this is just a stage act all along.

[wilpuri]

I once met Kimmo Kiljunen during a class trip to parliament as a part of our Sociology/Social studies (Yhteiskuntaoppi in Finnish, roughly translating into society study) course on the European Union. He talked for a while about different things regarding the union, especially highlighting its current theme "Unity through Diversity", which has to be one of the most contradictory and moronic slogans of the century. Anyway, later we were allowed to ask questions and I brough the matter of assimilation vs. multiculturalism into question, asking how we would could function as a united whole if we were so diverse, basically. I cited some recent examples that highlighted the problems of both European integration as well as integration of extra-European immigrants. He reacted almost angrily, saying there will be no place for xenophobia in the European Union, and basically left my question completely unanswered.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

... sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The same custodes that keep as a beacon of freedom the USA that keeps people in Guantanamo for years without trial and Geneva convention's protection, while authorizing torture....

The same custodes that stifle any debate on multiculturalism, multiracialism and immigration with soviet style laws against "racism" or dissolve a belgian identitarian party for their convenience.

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Breha

The same custodes that keep as a beacon of freedom the USA that keeps people in Guantanamo for years without trial and Geneva convention's protection, while authorizing torture....

The same custodes that stifle any debate on multiculturalism, multiracialism and immigration with soviet style laws against "racism" or dissolve a belgian identitarian party for their convenience.

Be as it may, the Russian elections were sub-par when it comes to transparent and free democracy. Of course, this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone, Russia will continue to do as it pleases, for better or for worse.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Gottslav

The first elections I didn't take part in. This is not even funny anymore, a farсe beyond believable. "The against all" would be an option, otherwise this is just a stage act all along.

What kind of political party would you vote for?

[svin]

The results for Chechnya are quite funny, heh.
I didn't take part in "elections" too.

[Errigal]

It is worth mentioning that just because the winner was easy to predict does not mean the election was rigged or fraudulent. Sometimes elections are used to choose a kind of voluntary dictatorship. The best example I know of is the voting history of the Canadian province of Alberta:

In its history, Alberta has seen only four parties form governments, none of which has returned to power after a single incumbent defeat:
1905-1921 Alberta Liberal Party
1921-1935 United Farmers of Alberta
1935-1971 Social Credit Party of Alberta
1971-present Alberta Progressive Conservatives

Politics of Alberta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Alberta voters seem to all move in the same direction at the same time (like a school of fish) every fifteen to thirty years.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

Be as it may, the Russian elections were sub-par when it comes to transparent and free democracy. Of course, this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone, Russia will continue to do as it pleases, for better or for worse.

I may understand your fears, very well, but you should understand me also. Eu is a fake democracy, power is exercised in a non-muscular way, because a very soft, well oiled and deadly effect mind control machine directs any media, even if invisible to the casual reader.

It is a far smarter way of doing things than in Russia, but also far less honest.

People who are defrauded of their fredom are turned into their own executioners, while the few who dare defend Europe are put aside and branded as nuts, xenophobic, racist: a soft character assassination that is politically worst than an overt police state persecution.

[Milesian]

Regardless of Putin or the others in the election, I can't help but feel that these "observers" are truly an insidious bunch of nameless goons. What is their purpose, who do they answer to and what are the motives of their employers - that they can just walk into sovereign states and tell them this is wrong, that isn't being done according to their standards, beggars belief.

The Russian elections are a farce?
Very well, maybe so. And wasn't the American election that put Bush into power also a farce with serious questions being raised about vote rigging?
Where were these faceless "observers" then? I don't remember the Americans being reported to some unelected international quango then.

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Milesian

Regardless of Putin or the others in the election, I can't help but feel that these "observers" are truly an insidious bunch of nameless goons. What is their purpose, who do they answer to and what are the motives of their employers - that they can just walk into sovereign states and tell them this is wrong, that isn't being done according to their standards, beggars belief.

The Russian elections are a farce?
Very well, maybe so. And wasn't the American election that put Bush into power also a farce with serious questions being raised about vote rigging?
Where were these faceless "observers" then? I don't remember the Americans being reported to some unelected international quango then.

There are international observers at American elections as well.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

There are international observers at American elections as well.

Not since the run-up to war with Iraq has Western media coverage of a country been so completely and unreasonably one-sided: take, for example, this CBS News report. It features an interview with one Robert Amsterdam, described as "an expert on Russian politics," who gives his view that the election is just a pro forma exercise in which the outcome is predetermined. What they somehow neglect to tell you is that Amsterdam, far from being a disinterested "expert," is in reality a partisan of the jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky – he's Khodorkovsky\'s lawyer.

...
He decries a change in the election rules requiring parties represented in parliament to get 7 percent of the vote, up from 5 percent. Yet the Russian system is far more democratic than, say, the American system, where a party that gets 7 percent – or even 10 or 20 percent – is by no means guaranteed a single seat in Congress. That is, if they even manage to get on the ballot. Parties other than the state-sanctioned and state-subsidized Democrats and Republicans face almost impossible hurdles to achieve ballot status – and, even if they do, these "third" parties operate at a tremendous disadvantage not only legally, but in terms of being taken seriously by the "mainstream" media. Is this any better than in Russia? One could make a convincing case that it is far worse.

Is Russia Democratic?- by Justin Raimondo

As well, take a look at these districts for the US Congress:


Most Gerrymandered Congressional Districts - Maps » Outside The Beltway | OTB

They are these ridiculous shapes in oder to gather the most voters for one party or another (called gerrymandering). These are just some extreme examples of a very common practise in the US.

As for irregularities on election day, just use Google to see how widespread it is in the USA.

[svin]

Regardless of Putin or the others in the election, I can't help but feel that these "observers" are truly an insidious bunch of nameless goons. What is their purpose, who do they answer to and what are the motives of their employers - that they can just walk into sovereign states and tell them this is wrong, that isn't being done according to their standards, beggars belief.

Obviously, you are right. Even if I dislike (that's too soft word, actually) our government doesn't mean that I consider international "observers" to be some kind of truth-bearers who want to free Russian people from opression.