RUSSIA:Europe's main election watchdog warned Russia yesterday it would refuse to monitor a March 2nd presidential vote unless Moscow eases restrictions on its work.
Russia's electoral commission has invited 70 observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) monitoring body to Russia only three days before the election.
The body has now asked Moscow to extend the mission and allow its staff in next week to monitor election campaigning, and said that otherwise its observers will not turn up.
"We have a mandate to do long-term observation. An election is not just what happens on election day," said Curtis Budden, spokesman for the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
"It's absolutely impossible to observe that if we can only arrive three days before the election." The ODIHR cancelled plans to monitor the Russian parliamentary election in December because it said the Kremlin had placed too many restrictions on its mission by limiting the number of observers to 70.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, barred by Russia's constitution from serving a third consecutive term, has already named his preferred successor as first deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Medvedev is expected to easily win the vote, which the Kremlin's opponents call unfair. He receives blanket support in the media and has refused to join other candidates for televised debates.
In December, Moscow said the ODIHR had been pressurised by the United States into refusing to monitor the parliamentary vote.
European politicians from the OSCE's parliamentary arm and the Council of Europe did monitor December's vote, and judged it unfair. Unlike ODIHR - which trains its experts to scrutinise the entire build-up to an election - those bodies concentrate on polling day itself.
Mr Budden said the ODIHR told the Russians on Tuesday that unless 20 monitors were allowed into Russia next week to monitor campaigning, it would cancel the mission altogether.
"Yes, we are going to pull out unless the invitation is extended," he said. "If we're not let in, we can't effectively observe and we can't fulfil our mandate."