Russian elections 'flawed', says watchdog

Election watchdogs said today that Russia’s parliamentary elections were not democratic.

Luc van den Brande, who headed the delegation from the international Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pointed at a lack of real separation of branches of power, saying that the vote appeared to be more of a referendum in President Vladimir Putin’s policy rather than a parliamentary election.

He said there had been an “overwhelming influence of the president’s office and the president on the campaign” and said there was “certainly abuse of administrative resources” to influence the outcome. He also said there were flaws in the secrecy of the vote.

The central conclusion was that yesterday's vote "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have" said Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's parliamentary assembly. He said it was "not a fair election".

Mr van den Brande also declared: “Effectively, we can’t say these were fair elections,” he said at a news conference.

The two groups said in a joint statement that the elections were well-organised, but added: “There was not a level political playing field in Russia in 2007.”

They said the vote took place in an atmosphere that “seriously limited political competition”, pointing at official interference, media coverage biased in the Kremlin’s favour and new election laws that hindered political pluralism.

“There are a lot of concerns about the evolution of democracy” in Russia, Mr van den Brande said.