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Russian observers to monitor U. S. vote
Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Published: Thursday, October 23, 2008
Stung by international criticism of its presidential and congressional elections, Russia is striking back by sending a team of observers to monitor the U. S. presidential poll on Nov. 4.
Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman with Russia's Foreign Ministry, says Moscow will have eight election observers attached to a monitoring mission conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The OSCE, which has infuriated the Kremlin in the past by criticizing elections in Russia and other post-communist states, is sending 62 election observers to the United States.
The mission, headed by Audrey Glover, the top British diplomat, includes a core of 13 international experts from the OSCE's office in Washington and 48 international observers who will be deployed in teams of two around the country.
In addition to visiting polling stations on Nov. 4, they will study the election campaign, media coverage and issues of voter registration, identification and voters rights.
Russia's Central Elections Committee has also assigned its Centre for the Study of Election Technology to review the U. S. election campaign.
A preliminary report prepared by the group, after studying U. S. media coverage on the NBC, CBS and ABC television networks since September, has concluded Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has a "hidden advantage."
A preliminary report obtained by the Russian daily online newspaper Kommersant concludes the U. S. television networks devoted more time to Republican candidate John McCain, but "the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative."
The Russian study also said Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential pick, has been subjected to more criticism than her Democratic counterpart, Senator Joe Biden.
It adds that when the presidential candidates' platforms are described, Mr. Obama's is described last, to make it look better, and when platforms are compared, "Obama's is presented preferable."
The observations appear to ape western criticisms of Russia's elections in which international observers have complained Russia's television networks are overwhelmingly pro-Kremlin and offer unbalanced and unfair coverage of opposition candidates.
Russia's last presidential election in March, which former deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev won with 70% of the popular vote, was greeted with a chorus of international criticism, with observers declaring the vote a mockery and a retreat from democracy.
Now, it seems, it is payback time.
"They criticized us at our elections and we will criticize them, too," Evgeny Minchenko, head of Moscow's International Institute of Political Expertise, told Kommersant.
He accused the Russian study of having a political axe to grind, saying, "There is the task to take away from America its position as sole interpreter and priest of democracy."
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So I wonder what they'll do? Will they sing traditional Russian songs, and insist on purple fingers
