RUSSIA:International observers issued a highly scathing report on Russia's elections yesterday, describing the poll as "not fair" and highlighting numerous flaws including the "unprecedented" abuse of office by president Vladimir Putin.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said Sunday's parliamentary elections had failed to meet the organisation's commitments and standards. "It was not a fair election," Goran Lennmarker, the head of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly said.
The observers said there were at least four areas of major concern. These included a "strong bias" in the media in favour of Mr Putin and his United Russia party and widespread reports of harassment of Russia's opposition parties.
Additionally, Mr Putin's unprecedented personal endorsement for United Russia amounted to an illegitimate "merging of a political party and the state". This was an abuse of power and a "clear violation of international commitments and standards",.
The observers decried Kremlin rule changes ahead of Sunday's elections, which included raising the threshold for entering the state Duma from 5 per cent to 7 per cent. This made it "extremely difficult for new and smaller parties to develop and compete effectively", it said.
"If Russia is a managed democracy then this was a managed election," Luc van den Brande, the head of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly said, adding that there was no real separation of powers in Russia.
The council's excoriating report prompted a furious reaction from the Kremlin. Officials dubbed it "biased, groundless and unbalanced". Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, defended Mr Putin's decision to campaign openly for United Russia, saying: "It isn't forbidden by any electoral law."
The Kremlin has already denounced the OSCE after its main observing organisation, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, refused to monitor Sunday's poll, claiming Moscow had denied its experts visas.
Yesterday, supporters of Putin's United Russia party celebrated victory after gaining a massive 64.1 per cent of the vote. The Communists came a distant second with around 11.6 per cent, with the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic party taking 8.2 per cent. The fake opposition party A Just Russia also passed the new 7 per cent barrier.
Several hundred pro-Kremlin activists gathered in the snow outside the Kremlin and St Basil's cathedral yesterday next to a newly-erected stage. On it were the words "Our victory", beneath Putin's photograph. Patriotic rap music blared across a square decorated with red, white and blue balloons.
There are now serious doubts over Russia's continuing membership of the Council of Europe - which it joined in 1996. Yesterday, however, Luc van den Brande said there was no prospect of Russia being thrown out of the club. "We are for inclusion and not exclusion," he said.
But there was disappointment from observers about the direction that post-communist Russia was now taking after nearly eight years under Putin. The observers also complained about restrictions on their activities - with only 300 invited this time compared to the 1,163 who came during Russia's last vote in 2003.
Putin described the vote as legitimate and said it had reaffirmed Russia's "internal political stability". It was also a sign of the voters' trust in him, he said, following his decision to head United Russia's federal party list.
Talking to workers just outside Moscow he declared: "It is now clear to me that Russians will never allow their country to develop along the destructive path seen in some other countries of the former Soviet Union."
Sunday's elections effectively wipe out the last independent MPs from Russia's new parliament. With the exception of the semi-autonomous Communists, all new MPs support the president with United Russia taking 315 out of 450 seats.
EU governments voiced concern over the conduct of the elections. In Berlin, a government spokesman said: "Russia was not a democracy and Russia is not a democracy." The UK foreign office called on Russia to investigate claims of voting irregularities, which, "if proven correct, would suggest that the Russian elections were neither free nor fair". Last night Russia's two main state-controlled TV channels did not screen any of the criticisms made by the OSCE. They merely showed a brief interview with two international observers who said the vote had gone well.