Putin says U.S. is meddling in Russian election
By Clifford J. Levy Published: November 26, 2007

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin Monday accused the United States of trying to taint the legitimacy of upcoming Russian parliamentary elections by pressing a group of prominent independent election observers to abandon their attempts to monitor the campaign.

Putin contended that the election monitors, who are deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, had canceled their plans to monitor the parliamentary balloting because of pressure from the State Department in Washington.

Putin's statements in recent weeks have taken on an increasingly nationalistic tone as he has sought to muster support for his party in the balloting on Sunday. Speaking to reporters Monday in St. Petersburg, he once again criticized what he suggested was foreign meddling in Russia's affairs.

"According to information we have, it was again done at the recommendation of the U.S. State Department and we will take this into account in our inter-state relations with this country," he said. "Their goal is the delegitimization of the elections. But they will not achieve even this goal."

In focusing on the supposed role of the State Department in the decision, Putin was highlighting a charge first made on Nov. 19 by the chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov.

Churov noted at a news conference that the monitoring group had abandoned its mission soon after its director, Ambassador Christian Strohal of Austria, visited Washington. Strohal's aides said subsequently that the timing of the visit and the decision had been coincidental.

A spokeswoman for the election observers Monday called Putin's assertion "nonsense." The United States Embassy in Moscow would not immediately comment.

The election-monitoring arm of the OSCE, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or ODIHR, announced on Nov. 16 that it was canceling its mission to Russia, saying that restrictions imposed by the Russian government had made it impossible for it to carry out its work. The State Department and European diplomats supported the decision.

Urdur Gunnarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the monitoring arm, said Putin was misinformed about the reasons for the group's withdrawal.

"This was a decision that was simply based on the fact that we were not receiving any visas and time had run out," she said. "The only consultation that took place was within our office with the people that plan these observation missions and carry them through. They have 150 observation missions under their belt. They know by now what needs to be in place to do this."

Putin has turned the parliamentary elections into a referendum on his leadership, and in recent days he has stepped up his campaigning for his party, United Russia. At the same time the Kremlin has used its control over the election laws, government agencies and the news media to ensure that the opposition has little if any chance of gaining a foothold in the next Parliament.

Over the weekend, the opposition coalition, which is headed by Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion, held rallies and marches in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. The rallies were broken up by riot police officers, with hundreds of people detained. Kasparov's movement, Other Russia, contends that Putin is creating a Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia.

Kasparov himself was arrested in Moscow on Saturday when he tried to deliver a letter to the federal election authorities assailing the conduct of the election, and a judge sentenced him to five days in jail.

In St. Petersburg on Sunday, two well-known opposition politicians, Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of a mainstream liberal party, the Union of Right Forces, were briefly detained.

ODIHR has monitored every election in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its presence was viewed as an effort by Moscow to ensure that elections complied with international standards.

But the Kremlin has in recent years chafed at the group's reports, contending that they were biased against the government.

After the 2004 presidential elections, which Putin won in a landslide, the group stated flatly that the campaign had not been conducted fairly.

In recent months, Russian officials maintained that monitoring group needed to be reformed. At the same time, the Kremlin repeatedly delayed the issuing of visas to the group's monitors, preventing them from observing the campaigning for Parliament around the country, as well as news coverage, as is customary.

Russian officials then abruptly said they would sharply limit the size of ODIHR's mission to only 70 people, down from 400 in the parliamentary election in 2003.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/26/ ... ssia.4.php

Now you might say Airborne... why are you putting this in here. Well my friends, Putin is Fighting vigurously President Bush and rich corporations that are trying to steal the Russian wealth as they are all over the word. Bush viamently believes in this New World Order bull crap and has been trying to push it in Russia.... there have been many columns about it in Europe but seldom spoke of in this country... I wonder why. Bush wants democracy my a_s ..... he wants consolidated power in a New World Order. Tell me America.... does this feel like a Democracy in America?