From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/3/2007 1:50 AM
    

Moscow critical of Burns’ comment on Duma election monitoring

02.11.2007, 21.44

MOSCOW, November 2 (Itar-Tass) -- The U.S. claims of the alleged failure of State Duma elections monitoring to comply with the OSCE/ODIHR criteria aim to dispute democracy in Russia and promote U.S. foreign political goals, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday in comments on the recent Vienna statement of Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns.

He claimed that Russia was allegedly trying to impede the activity of international observers at the State Duma elections of December 2.

“The unfounded assertions show that certain forces in the West are allergic to the sovereignty of Russia’s democratic system, which is not following guidelines given from the overseas but abides by internal laws, which correspond to the free choice made by the Russian people in the early 1990s,” the ministry said.

“Russia is strictly complying with international electoral commitments, which were defined in the document of the Copenhagen Conference of the Human Dimension of the CSCE in 1990 and a number of other unanimously adopted OSCE documents. The commitments include the universal and equal election rights, the secret ballot, and regular and competitive elections,” the ministry said.

As for the modality of election monitoring, “it is defined by the ODIHR regulations, which do not enjoy the status of an international treaty and thus is not legally binding for OSCE member states,” the ministry said.

“Hence OSCE member countries have the right to select the number of election observers and the period of their visit,” the ministry said. “OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin Brichambaut recently told the Russian media that everyone must invite election observers, but it is up to the host country to determine their number.”

“Russia has been advocating the adoption of the fundamental principles of OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring in order to legalize the modality issue,” the ministry said.

“Mr. Burns seems to care for Russian democracy, so why doesn’t the United State support our initiative?” the ministry said. “Alas, in that case they would have to abide by electoral principles, as well.”

”In contrast to Russia, the United States has not brought domestic laws in correspondence with OSCE requirements. The Americans are limiting the number of OSCE observers and offer the ODIHR to reach agreement on election monitoring missions with the authorities of states or even counties. For instance, only 92 OSCE observers were invited to the U.S. presidential and congressional elections in November 2004, and they could monitor the ballot in only the capital city and 12 states. Only 18 international observers were invited to watch the midterm elections in November 2006, and they performed their duty in 14 states,” the ministry said.

“The American lists of voters also have many flaws, as that country does not have the compulsory registration of residence. OSCE observers described provisional ballots as a very inefficient form of the expression of will,” the ministry said. “The content of voting papers was criticized, as well. Many states include municipal candidates in the same voting papers with presidential candidates. Besides, the election and the count of votes are supervised by state secretaries, who are political nominees of governors and form their teams by party principle.”

The American democracy is far from being perfect by OSCE standards, the ministry said.

“The U.S. claims of our incompliance with OSCE/ODIHR monitoring criteria are nothing but an attempt to use the occasion for questioning Russian democracy and pursue its own foreign political goals,” the ministry said.

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