RUSSIAN ELECTION observers were criticised by politicians yesterday as a group of international observers began to arrive.
The group, from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), includes five observers from Ireland, and are arriving in advance of Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The main local monitoring group, Golos (Voice), yesterday came under fire from deputies from three parties who allege that it has “grossly violated Russian election law”.Three Duma deputies, Andrei Nazarov of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, Maxim Rokhmistrov of the ultra-right-wing Liberal Democrats and Anton Belyakov from the Social Democratic A Just Russia party have reported Golos to the prosecutor general alleging that observers have abused their special position by acting as journalists and publishing confidential material.
At the core of the allegations, however, is that Golos receives funding from two US organisations: the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
In their statement the deputies claim that the work of both organisations is “directed and controlled by the US Department of State”. On its website the NED describes itself as a “private non-profit foundation” while the NDI is a “non-profit, non-partisan and non-governmental organisation”.
Speaking for the prime minister, Mr Nazarov said they had asked the prosecutor’s office to “consider the possibility of suspending the operations of the Golos association”. The move comes after a scathing attack on foreign funding of local observers by Mr Putin at a rally of the United Russia party on Sunday.
The deputy head of Golos, Grigoriy Melkonyants, told the Interfax News Agency that funding from abroad was a way to ensure independent monitoring of elections in Russia.
“In the current situation this is arguably the only way to carry out independent election monitoring. Our international partners are organisations that have quite close relations with the Russian authorities, and they are keen to make sure that information given by Golos is objective,” he said.
The campaign so far has been marked by allegations of abuse from all sides, with United Russia the main party under attack. The widely read Gazeta.Ru claims, for example, that it has a recording of a speech made to business leaders by Alexander Aksenov, the head of Moscow’s Sokolinaya Gora region, in which he asks them to gather up ballot papers of voters who will be absent from Moscow on election day in order to help him reach his target of a 58 per cent poll for United Russia.
Another talking point has been the overwhelming preponderance of United Russia posters and flags in the capital. On a bridge leading to the foreign ministry building in Moscow yesterday there were 120 flags bearing the United Russia logo.
The main United Russia poster has also attracted strong criticism as it is almost a direct copy of the generic poster issued by the Central Election Commission (CED) urging citizens to get out and vote for the party of their choice. The CEC’s had been displayed throughout the country long before the political parties were allowed to put their own posters up.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), Russia’s second biggest political grouping, had few posters on view in central Moscow.
They have, however, issued two distinctly different leaflets. In an attempt to persuade older voters they have come up a with a traditional hammer-and-sickle logo with the message “I want to be in the USSR”, while younger voters are being lured by a poster of a young man and woman with the slogans “Today is Truly Red” and “Together we will be victorious”.
The couple are attired in red and the man is carrying what appears to be a laptop.