November 01, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 19, 1428

MOSCOW, Oct 31: Russia on Wednesday slashed the number of foreign election observers for parliamentary elections in December, which Europe’s main elections watchdog said could ‘seriously limit’ its mission.

Russia’s Central Elections Commission (CEC) said Moscow had invited 300-400 foreign observers, including just 70 from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

The figure was at least three times less than the previous parliamentary elections held in 2003.

ODIHR spokeswoman in Warsaw Urdur Gunnarsdottir said Russia was imposing ‘restrictions’ that could ‘seriously limit’ election monitoring.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was imposing no such restrictions and was fully abiding by its international obligations.

“Russia will follow and apply all its obligations,” Peskov said.

Critics have warned that the Kremlin will try and rig the vote.

Analysts said the reduction in the number of foreign election observers was a message to the West not to try and teach a newly confident Russia any lessons in democracy.

“It is part of a broader statement: Russia will not allow anyone to preach to it in terms of its internal political situation,” said Maria Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a research institution.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Politics, said the changes would make little difference because the political system was already weighted in favour of the ruling United Russia party.

“Over the past two years our political system has been transformed to enable the success of one party -- this is beyond the mandate of the observers,” Lukyanov said.

In addition to the ODIHR observers, Russia has sent invitations to a Moscow-friendly grouping of former Soviet republics and to representatives from countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Jordan and Poland.

ODIHR is the election monitoring arm of the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and is considered to be the most authoritative election body in eastern Europe.

In Russia’s last parliamentary election, about 1,200 monitors, including 399 from ODIHR, fanned out across Russia. Their report found the elections “failed to meet many... commitments for democratic elections”. The spat over election observers comes as Moscow steps up a long-running diplomatic offensive against the OSCE, which it accuses of bias against Russian policies.

Russia last week said that it wanted to sharply reduce the scope of OSCE observer missions, leading to accusations that the Kremlin is afraid of outside scrutiny in what critics say is a rigged election process.

One aspect under attack, diplomatic sources said, was the OSCE’s tradition of issuing a preliminary report the day after elections -- a high-profile occasion when journalists are given the organisation’s broad-brush findings.

Backing Russia’s bid to change OSCE monitoring work are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all countries that to different extents have been criticised over recent elections.—AFP