Russia Working To Limit Election Observers

MOSCOW, Oct. 24 — Russia has begun a diplomatic effort to curtail the activities of election observers in the states of the former Soviet Union, submitting proposals to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that would sharply cut the size of the missions and prohibit the publication of their reports immediately after an election.

The proposals, circulated confidentially last month by Russias diplomatic delegation to the organizations headquarters in Vienna, would also forbid observers from making any public statements about a governments electoral conduct in the days after citizens cast their votes.

Taken together, the proposals would severely curtail the activities of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or O.D.I.H.R., the organizations election-monitoring arm, ahead of two important elections in Russia — the Parliamentary election set for Dec. 2 and presidential elections next spring.

They also mark the latest Kremlin effort to renegotiate standards of governance and international cooperation that it accepted after the Soviet Unions collapse, and seem certain to lead to another impasse with the West.

The monitoring office sends long-term and short-term observation teams, often numbering hundreds of people, to elections throughout the former Soviet Union. Ambassador Christian Strohal, the Austrian diplomat who leads the office, said the proposals appear designed to limit the capacity and influence of objective assessments of a governments electoral conduct.

All of this is an effort to redefine — not redefine, deconstruct — 10 years of one of the most credible election observations that there is, he said in an interview last week in Vienna. It is about a certain principle that there cannot be an institution that has an opinion that comes about in a professional manner, as opposed to a political or diplomatic manner.

Whether Russia can force its hand diplomatically is unclear. The 55-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe requires unanimous votes for its decisions. Russias proposals were cosigned by six other former Soviet states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

But because the organization requires consensus, diplomats said, Russia can block other decisions at a meeting of foreign ministers of the 55 member countries scheduled for late November in Madrid, and try to demand that its position be heard and to exact concessions that could weaken the observers abilities.

Russia can also act unilaterally, by demanding conditions for the observers at elections this fall for the 450-seat Duma, Russias lower house of Parliament. At the last Duma election, in 2004, Russia invited observers roughly three months in advance. This year, Russia has not invited the observers yet. The elections are slightly more than five weeks away.

Vladimir Y. Churov, the chairman of Russias Central Election Commission, declined to reply to a written list of questions about the proposals and invitation plans that were submitted to him on Tuesday. A Kremlin spokesman also declined comment on Wednesday.

But in an article published this week in the Kommersant newspaper, Andrei Davydov, a commission spokesman, suggested that the number of observers this year will be tightly controlled. Organizations, he said, will be allowed several dozen observers, and not 400 like the O.S.C.E. has proposed.

Mr. Strohal said Russia thus far has not even agreed to allow a small group of observers, known as a needs assessment mission, to visit Russia and determine the nature and size of a mission for the Duma elections.

Such a step would also ordinarily be done months in advance. Russia has balked, though it allowed similar assessments in years past. We have asked several times for a needs assessment mission, Mr. Strohal said. They say, What is it?

Bruce George, a member of Parliament in Britain who has been an observer at 18 elections, including in Russia, Georgia and Ukraine, said that because of the delay the observer mission already will not be able to do a thorough job. Further conditions, he said, will endanger future missions by encouraging other countries with a history of tainted elections to set conditions unilaterally, too.

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