Jim Murphy

Presidential elections in Russia

Elections will take place in Russia on 2 March to choose a new president and successor to Vladimir Putin.  It's important that these elections, as always, are free and fair.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has an important role to play in this.  So I was disappointed to hear that the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Parliamentary Assembly  have been forced to withdraw from monitoring them.

As a participating State, Russia has freely signed up to OSCE principles and commitments to ensure democratic elections and to allow ODIHR unfettered access to observe the process from beginning to end.  But the restrictions imposed by the Russian government would not have allowed long term observers to view the pre-election processes and would have severely limited the overall number of observers ODIHR could send.

Free and fair elections are about much more than just counting votes on polling day.  Fair media coverage, freedom of speech for all candidates and the right to conduct political campaigns in a free manner throughout the campaign period are particularly important.

Posted at 10:24 13 February 2008 by Jim Murphy  |  Comments[4]