Putin accuses US of trying to 'devalue' elections
America was accused of meddling in Russia’s elections by President Putin today. He claimed Washington was advising Western observers to boycott the vote on December 2.
He also blamed the US government for a decision by one organisation not to monitor the elections.
“According to the information we have, once again this was done at the advice of the US State Department,” he said.
“We will take this into account in our relations with that country,” he warned in comments that reflected the growing chill between Moscow and Washington and highlighted his threat to brook no US criticism of Russia’s vote.
The Kremlin has mounted a major campaign to produce a crushing victory for the dominant United Russia party, possibly to help secure Mr Putin’s grip on power even after he steps down as president next year.
Mr Putin is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s election monitoring office said its decision not to send a mission to observe the vote came after Moscow failed to issue visas in time and created other obstacles.
Mr Putin said the OSCE’s refusal to send observers was aimed at casting doubt on the legitimacy of the vote.
“Their goal clearly is to make elections look illegitimate, but they won’t succeed,” he said at a meeting sponsored by United Russia.
A spokeswoman for the OSCE’s monitoring arm called his accusations “nonsense.”
“This decision was a decision that was only made based on the fact that we were not receiving any visas and were unable to do a meaningful observation of the election,” she said.
“It was not made on the recommendation or co-ordinated with any government, and certainly not with the US government.”
She said the decision was made by the director of the OSCE’s Warsaw-based Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in consultation with the organisation’s elections experts.
“These are people who have organised over 150 election observations, so they by now know what they are able to do and not able to do, when it is no longer possible for us to do a proper observation,” she said.
The OSCE – which includes the United States, Canada, European countries and ex-Soviet republics – is widely regarded in the West as the most authoritative assessor of whether elections are conducted in line with democratic principles.
Its observers have criticised several votes in Russia and some other ex-Soviet republics, and its assessments were seen as key factors in encouraging massive protests in Georgia and Ukraine that powered Western-oriented leaders into office.
