Warsaw — The OSCE’s election observation office has cancelled its mission to Russia’s parliamentary elections next month, after Moscow imposed restrictions on the number of observers and the length of their stay that the office says make meaningful monitoring impossible.
ODIHR had planned to send a full mission for the 17–19 September State Duma vote, as it has for Russian elections for two decades. But the Russian foreign ministry informed the office that, citing pandemic rules, it would accept no more than 60 observers — a fraction of the several hundred ODIHR considered necessary for a country of Russia’s size — and would limit how long they could remain in the country.
“It has become clear that the Russian authorities are not willing to receive an election observation mission in line with the usual requirements,” said Matteo Mecacci, ODIHR’s director. He added that the conditions imposed would not allow observers to work independently or to cover the country adequately, and that sending a shrunken mission under those terms would only lend undeserved credibility to the process.
Moscow rejected the criticism, insisting the limits reflect sanitary requirements rather than politics, and noting that observers from other international organisations and bilateral partners remain welcome. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has also indicated its delegation cannot participate under the conditions set.
The cancellation leaves September’s vote without international observation from the body Russia itself helped build — the first Duma election since 1999, barring a 2008 dispute with a similar ending, that ODIHR will not watch. It comes as the Russian authorities designate independent media and monitoring groups as ‘foreign agents’, including the country’s best-known domestic election watchdog.
For ODIHR, the principle at stake is that governments do not get to choose how closely they are watched. For Moscow, observers suggested in Vienna this week, the calculation may be simpler: a mission it cannot control is worth less to it than a mission it does not have.
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