According to the expert, Russia’s refusal to accept a delegation of” doc-like ” size was used by the OSCE as an excuse not to recognize the legitimacy of the Duma elections in advance
Director of the OSCE/ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) The day before, Matteo Mecacci announced the refusal of this organization to send an observer mission to the Duma elections in Russia. As the reason for the refusal, he cited the fact that the Russian authorities wanted to limit the number of observers sent by this organization “in the absence of any clear restrictions related to the pandemic.” At the same time, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) also reported on the refusal to send observers.
Photo: Natalia Muschinkina
Meanwhile, according to representatives of the Central Election Commission, which sent a letter to the OSCE in June, the invitation stated that the order of work in the elections is determined “taking into account the current sanitary and epidemiological situation”. In response, the OSCE sent a request for the accreditation of 500 observers. The proposal of the Russian side to reduce this number to 60 people caused a demarcheEuropeans. It is very characteristic that during the pandemic, the OSCE previously adjusted the scale of its representation in elections held in different countries of the world in terms of area and population, and the number of delegation proposed by Russia was precisely focused on new norms: for example, in the same USA, the OSCE was limited to 30 observers in the recent presidential elections.
The strange development of the process of agreeing on the number of the European delegation could not but raise doubts about the attitude of the goals that the OSCE set for itself when entering into the dialogue. Therefore, the question that we asked political scientist Boris Mezhuyev was formulated as follows: can the refusal to approve the “doc-like” number of the delegation be considered the real reason for the OSCE’s refusal to observe the elections in the Russian Federation?”Here is the expert’s answer:
“Of course not. There is probably another reason: the general climate of Russian-European relations, the general attitude of this organization to Russia and the processes that take place in it. Because epidemiological norms are quite strict everywhere, and they often relate, including political things. They relate to the number of fans who are located onstadium stands during matches or Olympic events. And in this regard, I would not perceive these measures to limit the number of observers as exceptionally tough. The general context here is negative, I think it is the unwillingness to legitimize the Russian Duma elections. That is, it is a desire to show that these elections are not recognized by the OSCE as legitimate.
I think that there is no desire to provoke any clashes, this is not serious, the situation is completely different now, but there is a desire to have some fig in your pocket in relation to Russia. Moreover, there is a desire for certain forces to get closer to the United States on the basis of a certain alliance of democracies, to push the ideological agenda strongly. And organizations like the OSCE are lobbying for such an agenda, and apparently they want to preserve this “critical” attitude and not participate in the legitimization of the Russian elections.