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09.11.07
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Should Russia Fear Election Monitors?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov
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Contributors: Stephen Blank, Ethan S. Burger, Eugene Kolesnikov, Andrei Seregin
Last week, after a delay of two months, Russia finally invited international election monitors from The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the Duma elections in December.
Apart from delaying the OSCE monitoring mission, Russia also sharply reduced the number of observers from that organization from 400 in 2003, during the previous Duma election, to just 70.
Russia has also invited 300 to 400 observers from various organizations, including the monitoring arm of the CIS, a group that previously contradicted some of the negative appraisals of elections made by its European and American counterparts in the region.
Last month, Russia and a number of former Soviet republics put forward a proposal at the OSCE for a major overhaul of the organization’s monitoring practice. The proposal would have banned the OSCE monitoring missions from announcing their findings on the election process immediately after the vote.
Last week, R. Nicholas Burns, the United States under secretary of state for political affairs, criticized as “quite negative” a Russian proposal to restrict observers in the former Soviet states and to prevent monitors from issuing statements immediately after the ballot.
It is understandable why Russia might seek to limit the activity of international election observers - Western monitors have criticized voting in Russia as tarnished by fraud and constraints on opposition groups. In some former Soviet states, OSCE monitoring missions challenged the official election results and provided support for the opposition efforts to call for new elections.
But should Russia fear international observers during this year’s Duma elections? It seems that the election results are predetermined and that the United Russia party with President Vladimir Putin leading its slate of candidates is likely to win in a landslide. There is little chance the election results will be disputed since there is no viable opposition force that can score a competitive result.
Does Russia simply want to emphasize its sovereignty and introduce its own rules for election monitoring that limit the possibility that international election observers will become a political tool? Or does Russia really fear that the election results could be compromised and the “referendum on Putin’s Plan” might actually fail? Does this move reflect Russia’s new strength or its continued weakness? How should the West respond to Russia’s move?
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Eugene Kolesnikov, Private Consultant, The Netherlands
Russia has no reason to fear international election monitors. However, stating the issue of election monitoring in these terms misconstrues the OSCE purpose. The OSCE was formed as part of the Helsinki Accords on the principles of “sovereign equality and respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty.” Following these fundamental principles, a sovereign Russia should allow 400 OSCE election observers only if the United States, for instance, proportionately allows 800 OSCE observers to monitor its elections. Any other arrangement runs contrary to the sovereign equality principle. In this respect Russia puts things back into proper order.
Even more importantly, election monitoring by the OSCE transformed during the last 15 years from a vehicle of constructive interstate cooperation to a “vulgar instrument designed to promote the foreign policy interests of one or a group of countries,” as Vladimir Putin stated in his Munich speech. In these circumstances, it makes absolutely no difference whether this instrument is upheld by 70 or 400 observers. The larger number simply gives a false sense of thoroughness and objectivity. At some point this position needed to be backed by actions. The upcoming elections presented a good opportunity for doing just that.
And last but not least, the sense of high moral ground with respect to democracy that the West assumed in recent history has lost its relevance. We see a growing string of problems: occupation of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of people dead and five million displaced; Israeli occupation with millions of Palestinian refugees; Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Guantanamo Bay detention camp and extraordinary renditions; increasing alienation between the West and the Islamic world; and devaluation of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to name just a few.
It is really a high time to retire the imperial policies based on extremist liberal ideology. This could help stop and reverse the process of continuing polarization in the world and hopefully avoid yet another war—in Iran or somewhere else. By taking a firm stance on these issues, Russia is helping to curtail these imperial policies. Cutting down the number of election monitors is just a small step in that direction.
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Ethan S. Burger, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, & Scholar-in-Residence, School of International Service, American University, Washington D.C.
The Russian political leadership is doing itself a disservice by limiting the number of OSCE election observers to 70. Indeed, the decision to have a large number of observers from the CIS member states, few of which can be regarded as paradigms of democracy, makes a statement that is unlikely to be well received in Berlin, Paris, London, Ottawa, Rome and Washington. In the eyes of many informed specialists, such a decision will justifiably de-legitimize the election results.
If the Russian authorities had any intent to observe the norms and standards which they agreed to maintain with respect to holding free and fair elections, it would not restrict the number of OSCE election observers to an amount so small that it would be impossible for them to fulfill their mission. If Russia and other OSCE member states do not feel that ODIHR is properly performing its function, they should become more active in the organization to influence the process for both determining the qualifications of observers and the conduct of their activities.
As a result of the Russian government's decision, any reports of fraud or other irregularities will be treated by foreign governments as credible. This lack of openness may have the undesired consequence of leading countries to question the legitimacy of Russia's legislators. It is a bad precedent to establish, and hopefully it will not be repeated in the 2008 presidential election. In carrying out this policy, Russia is taking one additional step away from being regarded as a country capable of being integrated into international organizations. This is not a good development.
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Professor Stephen Blank, The U.S. Army War College, Carlyle Barracks, PA
(Dr. Blank’s views as contributed to Russia Profile do not represent the position of the U.S. Army, Defense Department or the U.S. Government)
Russian elites will publicly say that they want to manifest Russia's sovereignty, which means that Russia alone can do as it pleases in world affairs. But, in fact, this is whistling by the graveyard. Beneath this confidence clearly lies a great fear that the public will recognize the essential illegitimacy of the Russian government and the tightly orchestrated succession process as manifested in the elections. Therefore, in line with historical precedent and official psychology, Russia will continue undermining the OSCE program.
Every move in the last eight years carried out with regard to elections reveals this sense of insecurity and awareness of illegitimacy, including the strident rhetoric of sovereignty. These motives also play out in Russia's overall foreign policy, particularly in the CIS where it is trying to set up a mechanism to prevent the waves of popular self-assertion from reaching the shore. This project may make gains in the short term, but it does so at the risk of compromising the long-term security and prosperity of all the governments involved.
Such moves also underscore that Russia’s real intent in world affairs is not just the acceptance by all parties of its untrammeled right to a sphere of influence in the CIS (if not beyond it in Eastern Europe) but equally, if not more importantly, a free hand where it can do as it pleases. In other words, it wants the foreign policy equivalent of what autocracy means at home – unlimited power that answers to no one.
These motives lie behind this decision and many others in foreign policy. They can only succeed at the cost of impoverishing the chances for Russia's security and prosperity in the future as well as the security and prosperity of those of its neighbors who associate themselves with this proposal. Furthermore, the effort to undermine the OSCE also shows Russia's intention on revising the entire European status quo, in this case the Helsinki Treaty of 1975 and Moscow Protocol of 1991. These actions are immensely shortsighted and dangerous. Russia will regret them sooner than it thinks.
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Andrei Seregin, Head of Research, Imageland PR Agency, Moscow
The sharp cut in the number of observers, and delays with the invitation of OSCE monitors to Russia, seem to be more about Moscow’s attempt to press for OSCE reform than curbing foreign influence on the country’s voting process. The invitation itself seemed to be a kind of goodwill gesture on the part of President Vladimir Putin to his counterparts at a recent EU-Russia summit in Portugal.
Most political observers among both the Putin loyalists and the opposition believe the Kremlin already has such control of the election process that widespread rigging won't even be necessary. Indeed, having almost privatized the only popular nation leader, by putting the president on top of the United Russia party list, will be more than enough to guarantee a landslide. So there is no logic for having any fear of the observers on the part of the Kremlin.
Yet, the remaining 70 observers invited will be enough to support Western critics of Putin’s policies with “vivid examples of irregularities.” Limiting the observers’ ability provides even better grounds for declaring Russian elections “undemocratic.” So, there isn’t much reason for the Western discontent either. And ironically, the election observers’ reports in any case wouldn’t contribute much to the current deterioration of Russia’s relations with the EU and the United States. The U.S. State Department has criticized the Russian move; the House Foreign Affairs Committee has openly stated that Russia had missed its chance to make progress on democracy.
But Russia and its opponents seem willing to play the small diplomatic checkers game over elections monitoring, since it is actually nothing more than a political tool. And that’s really the main point. The Kremlin realizes that the OSCE monitoring missions have always been an extremely effective way to question the legitimacy of the results in case they don’t satisfy the West. The mechanics of undermining the official vote count - through giving early assessments of the poll - has proved to be quite effective during recent “color revolutions.”
This hypocrisy underlies even the very term “watchdog” (a term for international observer missions used by international media) – everyone knows watchdogs always serve their masters. The level of appropriate “fairness” and “freedom” is every time defined according to the master’s interests. So, the OSCE hasn’t yet proved that its election monitors will be fair and free enough to judge Russian elections.
Unfortunately, the current mess over election monitoring simply mirrors the overall state of the relationship between Russia and the West, which has come to be defined by mutual lack of confidence and understanding. The election observer process will be limited to political finger-pointing unless the situation changes. Both sides have at least some rationale behind their fears. |
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