White House concern over Russian elections

Putin praised the outcome as “strengthening Russia’s democracy.”

But the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a human rights and democracy watchdog group, said the election process represented a regression from democratic reforms Russia adopted after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said tonight: “It was the OSCE which monitored the elections, and they expressed concerns about the fairness of the election campaign. We share those concerns.

“We support Russia’s continued efforts to press ahead with both political and economic reform, building those institutions of democracy that are important to free and democratic states, such as a free press, political parties, respect for the rule of law,” McClellan said.

He said he hoped Russian politicians would now “press ahead on a reform agenda and support the United States-Russia partnership.”

Concerns over the election process “underlines the importance of Russian legislators dedicating themselves to pushing through the political and economic reform agenda,” McClellan said.

The OSCE suggested the vote was tainted by the use of state resources to promote the United Russia party, whose main ideology appears to be its loyalty to Putin. That party led all contenders.

Later, McClellan suggested to reporters that the United States was not challenging the outcome of the elections.

”Based on the pre-election polling, it appears that the election results roughly reflected the views of the electorate in Russia,” McClellan said.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said that US concerns about the process were conveyed to Putin’s government even before the elections.

“Certainly we’ve been in touch with the Russian government about the conduct of the elections,” Boucher said.