Last Updated: Monday, 3 December 2007, 17:32 GMT

BBC News

Monitors denounce Russia election

 

Foreign observers have said that Russia's parliamentary election, won by President Vladimir Putin's party, was "not fair".

The statement was made by a joint observer team of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe.

 

With nearly all ballots counted, Mr Putin's United Russia had 64.1% of the vote, the electoral commission said.

Mr Putin said the poll was "legitimate" and a vote of public trust in him.

 

The election "was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections," the observers from the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly told a news conference in Moscow.

 

The statement criticised "abuse of administrative resources" and "media coverage strongly in favour of the ruling party".

 

The polls "took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition" and "there was not a level political playing field", it said.

 

The OSCE had sent 330 foreign monitors to cover nearly 100,000 polling stations - far fewer than it had originally planned. It has accused Moscow of imposing curbs and delaying monitors' visas. Russia has denied the claims.

 

'No democracy'

 

Russia's electoral commission has dismissed mounting criticism from opposition activists and international governments, saying there were no serious violations on election day.

 

The Communist Party, which with 11.6% of the vote was the only opposition party to gain seats in the State Duma, said it would mount a legal challenge to the result and would decide whether to boycott the new parliament.

 

The prominent opposition activist and former chess world champion Garry Kasparov described the election as "the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia".

 

Several Western governments also expressed concern over the reports of irregularities.

"Russia was no democracy and it is no democracy," said German government spokesman Thomas Steg.

The US, Britain and France have called on Russia to investigate the alleged violations in the poll.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also expressed concern over the conduct of the elections.

 

'Political stability'

 

With 98% of the vote counted, the country's liberal opposition parties looked certain to fail to clear the 7% threshold needed to enter parliament.

In total, 11 parties were competing for places in the 450-member lower chamber of the State Duma.

Two parties allied to the Kremlin - A Fair Russia and the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party - were poised to win seats.

 

Mr Putin described the election as a "good example of domestic political stability" and thanked the voters for the turnout of 63%.

"This feeling of responsibility of our citizens is the most important indication that our country is strengthening, not only economically and socially but also politically," Mr Putin said.

 

The independent Russian monitoring group, Golos, had earlier reported various violations during the voting, which it said amounted to "an organised campaign".

It had claimed that in a number of cases state employees and students were pressured to vote, and those voting for United Russia were entered into a prize lottery in St Petersburg.

In Russia's troubled region of Chechnya, run by pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov, electoral officials have said a partial count showed United Russia won more than 99% of the votes on a 99% turnout.

United Russia's leader Boris Gryzlov acknowledged there had been violations but dismissed them as insignificant.

 

Putin's influence

 

On Monday, some 10,000 members of the pro-Putin Nashi (Ours) youth group held a rally in Moscow to celebrate United Russia's victory.

Mr Putin is constitutionally obliged to stand down after his second term as president ends in March next year.

 

The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says his party's win will enable him to continue wielding great influence in politics - even if he is no longer in high office.

Mr Putin announced this year he may seek the office of prime minister after his presidential term ends.

 

If predictions are correct and the Liberal Democratic Party enters parliament, its candidate Andrei Lugovoi - who is wanted in the UK for the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko - will be guaranteed a seat.

A parliamentary seat would grant him immunity from prosecution and extradition.

 

Any Comments regarding the Russian election result and how it has been covered by the Western media?

Just to remind you of the background to these elections............................

 

 

Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 November 2007, 11:33 GMT

Putin machine squeezes opponents

By Richard Galpin

BBC News, Moscow

 

Opposition politicians in Russia are warning that the parliamentary election on 2 December could mark the end of any serious opposition to President Vladimir Putin and his already dominant political party, United Russia.

Liberal parties say they are being squeezed out by deliberate changes to electoral laws and that the country is on the way to becoming a one-party state.

 

One of the last pre-election opinion polls to be published, from the independent Levada centre, suggests that only one party will get into parliament alongside United Russia - the Communist Party.

 

The mood of resignation, if not despair, was reflected at a recent party for the liberal Yabloko party here in Moscow.

It was held to mark the party's 14th birthday and two long tables laden with vodka bottles and finger-food had been set out.

While party leader Grigory Yavlinsky led the toasts and glasses started clinking in traditional fashion, he was soon admitting to me that his party now faced so many obstacles that it was impossible to play an opposition role in today's Russia.

"When you have no possibility for independent financing, no access to independent media, no access to independent justice, then by European standards there's no possibility to become an opposition," he said.

 

New rules

 

Since the last election four years ago there has also been a series of significant changes to electoral laws which opposition parties say aims to push them out of the political system.

 

Among the most important are:

 

Increasing the minimum percentage of votes required for a party to enter parliament from 5% to 7% and banning parties from forming coalitions in order to break through the higher threshold

 

Increasing the minimum number of members a party must have in order to be officially registered by the authorities, from 10,000 to 50,000

 

Banning independent candidates from running for parliament.

 

Yabloko has always been a small party and failed to cross the lower threshold in the last election. Now it knows it stands absolutely no chance of getting back into parliament.

But Mr Yavlinsky refuses to give up.

"We are sure there are millions of people who support the alternative, who want to bring democracy," he said.

 

Besides the legal changes and the Kremlin's control of all the most important media outlets, opposition parties also complain of harassment by the authorities.

Several leaders of the Other Russia opposition coalition were arrested on Saturday at a rally in Moscow. Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, one of the coalition leaders, was jailed for five days.

 

Another liberal party, the Union of Right Forces (SPS), says more than a million copies of its manifesto were confiscated by the police in Siberia.

Party leader Nikita Belykh has accused the government of using "totalitarian methods" to undermine the SPS election campaign.

 

Another place of sombre reflection these days is the parliamentary office of independent MP Vladimir Ryzhkov.

He has been an outspoken critic of President Putin and his party United Russia for many years.

But now he has been packing his bags. His days as a member of the Duma - the lower house of parliament - are over.

 

He cannot run as an independent candidate because of the changes in the law and his party was disqualified because a court ruled it did not meet the new minimum party membership requirement.

Mr Ryzhkov disputes this and says he has taken the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

He is bitter and says the upcoming election will be "the first absolutely non-free election since the end of the Soviet Union".

"It's becoming more and more like Soviet political system," he said, "with one centre of power: (the) Kremlin and Kremlin administration, which controls everything - parliament, courts, the party system, media, regional authorities and local authorities.

 

"(It's) a pyramid of power headed by one man."

 

'Successful leader'

 

But supporters of the Kremlin dismiss all these allegations as the complaints of losers.

"There is a liberal electorate in Russia," says pro-Kremlin analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov, "but only for one liberal project.

"During all public opinion polls (for the liberals) in previous years the figures have been quite stable at between eight and ten per cent. They need to unite and that is what they are not doing."

 

Mr Nikonov believes the other big problem the liberal parties face is that they are still associated with the chaos of the 1990s and in particular the economic crash in 1998.

And as for allegations that this whole election is being manipulated to ensure United Russia wins a huge majority, Mr Nikonov was equally dismissive.

 

"President Putin received the country eight years ago (when it had a ) GDP of $200 billion and today Russia's GDP is $1.2 trillion.. and people feel it," he says.

"So it's not just about manipulation, it's also about Putin being one of the most successful Russian leaders."

 

 

They're most likely rigged but, he'd still win even if they'd been fair.

 

"United Russia" seem to have done quite a lot of good for the ordinary Russian, and Kasparov isn't even that popular. The other parties don't even seem to have any real widespread support.

 

Perhaps thats to do with Putin restricting TV advertising for the other parties, but who knows?

 

Its also interesting that the government don't seem interested in changing the constitution to give Putin another term...

 

hmmm.... i dont like the way russias going, after all the good gorby did... putin is undoubtedly one of the worlds most dodgy characters.