Translated material
The Central Election Commission turned into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Vladimir Churov is trying to make the presidential elections more legitimate in the eyes of the West
The opinion of the West about the presidential elections on March 2 is still not indifferent to the Russian authorities. Despite last week's statements , Moscow would like to see international observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the elections. This conclusion clearly suggested itself after observing the course of yesterday’s negotiations between representatives of this organization and the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov.Let us recall that in the current election cycle the Russian side has sharply reduced the contingent of international observers. In 2003, the parliamentary elections were “monitored” by 1,163 envoys from different countries and organizations, in 1999 - 1,185. And for the Duma elections on December 2, 2007, Moscow invited only about 350 people. The same number of invitations have been sent to participate in monitoring the upcoming presidential elections. The news of the reduction in the number of observers in the fall was overshadowed by another scandal: a couple of weeks before the day of the parliamentary elections, the ODIHR refused to send its observers to Russia. The reasons for this demarche were cited as problems with obtaining Russian visas and the extremely short deadlines that the Central Election Commission set for experts to work with.
History may repeat itself in the presidential elections. The Central Election Commission did not change its conditions, because of this, last week Vladimir Churov had to devote a lot of time to diplomatic correspondence. The director of the bureau, Christian Strohal, in his letter demanded that he be able to monitor the Russian election campaign for three weeks before voting day, while the Russian side offered experts to arrive no earlier than February 27. At the same time, the bureau's press secretary, Curtis Baden, released information to the press that the organization is ready to boycott the Russian elections again if the first specialists are not allowed to start working in our country this week.
Commenting on this message, the curator of the international direction of the CEC, Igor Borisov, emphasized the “sovereignty of Russia,” which has the right to determine the procedure for monitoring on its territory, as well as the fact that domestic democracy has matured enough and does not need such close monitoring from Western colleagues. It seemed that there was no longer any chance of getting out of this situation and a new boycott by the ODIHR was inevitable. However, on Friday the ice broke: Vladimir Churov responded to Mr. Strohal with a lengthy letter, in which he invited him or any representative of the bureau “to come to Moscow to coordinate all issues related to the new ODIHR proposals on monitoring issues.”
European officials did not have to wait long: yesterday the head of the Bureau of Elections Division, Gerald Mitchell, and ODIHR Advisor on Elections in Russia, Matz Lindberg, arrived in Russia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their meeting with Mr. Churov took place in the strictest secrecy, and the negotiations were quite tough. The start of the consultations was scheduled for half past ten in the morning, and already at 11 the head of the Central Election Commission was scheduled to hold a large press conference on international monitoring issues. But Mr. Churov did not show up. The journalists gathered in the hall with cameras and voice recorders languished in anticipation, after which it was announced that the negotiations had dragged on and the event was cancelled. Some of the journalists, including the Vremya Novostey correspondent, decided to wait for the European officials in front of the Central Election Commission building, hoping to find out from them about the progress of the negotiations. However, this attempt was masterfully suppressed by the press service of the Central Election Commission, which fed the ambushed media workers a rumor that the negotiations were supposedly taking place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Moreover, at two o'clock in the afternoon a meeting of Vladimir Churov with the leaders of parliamentary factions was supposed to take place at the Central Election Commission. Journalists were also invited to this event, but at the last moment they were asked not to come. However, not only the Central Election Commission officials, but also representatives of the ODIHR itself yesterday refrained from commenting in anticipation of the second round of negotiations, scheduled for eight o’clock in the evening.
At the time of signing the issue, it was not known whether Russian and European officials managed to come to any agreements. Mr Baden said that "concrete results" would not be available until this morning. Nevertheless, the very fact that consultations not only took place, but also stretched over two rounds, confirms that the Russian side is really interested in ensuring that the autumn scandal does not repeat itself and that ODIHR representatives are still present at the elections on March 2. Otherwise, the negotiation process could have ended much faster, as happened during the parliamentary campaign.
Representatives of the expert community regard such long negotiations with representatives of the ODIHR as the Kremlin’s desire to ensure the March 2 vote legitimacy in the eyes of the West. “Political competition has recently been turned into a kind of profanation,” Georgy Satarov, president of the Indem Foundation, told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. - And now the authorities feel a certain lack of legitimacy. Perhaps that is why they are now more attentive to the issue of surveillance. In addition, we have always attached greater importance to presidential elections than to parliamentary elections.”
“The word “legitimacy” is too strong, since in the parliamentary elections the boycott by the ODIHR did not cause any significant damage to the legitimacy of the vote,” says Mikhail Vinogradov, director general of the Center for Political Conjuncture, who is more reserved in his assessments. - But it is obvious that the tactics of the parties have changed. And Russia has indicated some willingness to compromise, since even other things being equal, it is better that there is no negativity in connection with the election of a new president.”
However, Moscow is unlikely to be ready to make fundamental concessions; moreover, until the last moment, in official comments the question of the timing of the entry of observers was equated almost to the question of national sovereignty. In this case, Vladimir Churov yesterday faced a difficult task: not to lead to a new boycott of the elections, but also not to allow ODIHR representatives into Russia ahead of schedule. “Now, in the event of a demarche by observers, Mr. Churov himself may become responsible for this, since it was he who could not come to an agreement with them,” notes Mikhail Vinogradov in this regard.
Until the last moment, the Central Election Commission emphasized that problems arose only with the invitation of the ODIHR mission, thereby hinting at the political bias of this organization. However, yesterday, the Director of Public Relations of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Claes Bergman, said that “no final decision has yet been made on sending an observer mission from the OSCE PA to the presidential elections in Russia.” So, if the bureau again refuses to monitor, it is possible that it will have an ally in the boycott.