They Were Not Asked

The United States continue to make large-scale investments in Russian anti-government non-profit organizaitons. However, these payments bring no results, provoking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s resentment. Dmitry Medvedev appealed to foreign partners to keep themselves from interfering into Russian domestic affairs.

The Dec. 4 parliamentary elections brought victory for the United Russia party. As was expected, the U.S. official representatives could not help but comment on the results of the elections. Their assessment predictably conflicts with the worldwide one.

On Tuesday, Dmitry Medvedev claimed that the political system of the country is Russia’s domestic affair, not a concern to its foreign partners. “The elections have taken place. The results are known. The elections were conducted in accordance with Russian legislation on elections,” Medvedev said.

The issue on how the Russian political system looks is not international observers’ business, claimed Medvedev.

“The conclusion whether the political competition is limited or not relates to the competence of Russian authorities, not of international organizations. If they monitor the quality of the elections, it is one thing; the issue on how the political system looks is another thing. Soon they will tell us how to write a constitution,” the president said Tuesday at a meeting with Vladimir Churov, the head of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

It was the president’s reaction to how the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) International Election Observer Mission assessed the results of the elections. As Churov told to the president, the OSCE’s Observer Mission concluded that “the preparations for the elections were well administered.” Besides, the report of the OSCE’s mission contains an assessment of the Russian political system. In particular, there are conclusions about limited political competition in Russia and about close ties of election commissions with government bodies.

Whereas the president, Vladimir Putin, political parties and international observers gave the elections high marks, the United States remained dissatisfied with the results of the elections.

On Monday, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on the elections to the State Duma of Russia. As Interfax reported, at the international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, she announced to Western journalists that she had “serious concerns” about violations as well as cyber attacks on the observer organization GOLOS’s website.

It should be reminded that the GOLOS website was attacked virtually and went down Dec. 4, after Russian deputies asked the general prosecutor office to examine whether it complied with Russian regulations.

The CEC reacted promptly and sharply to the U.S. Secretary of State’s statement. “Let Mrs. Clinton turn her attention to elections in her country,” claimed Nikolai Konkin, the CEC secretary, to Interfax.

The position of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also tough. On Wednesday, Sergei Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, reproached Clinton for using the OSCE tribune to make allegations that bare no relation to the organization.

“Clinton and her team seem to have come in order to stand out in the eyes of the voters,” said Lavrov. “If the parties have complaints to each other, they should lay them out in a dialogue. This way is disrespectful of the OSCE,” conveys The Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS).

Following Clinton, Barack Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, repeated that the U.S. is seriously concerned with the conduct of the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections. In particular, as information agencies reported, he expressed anxiety that so-called “independent Russian observers,” such as GOLOS, were harassed. Carney pointed out that pressure was put on the members of the association as well as the website. Along with it the spokesman of the White House, he praised both the actions of Golos and of Russian citizens, who tried “to participate constructively” in the election process.

The Vzgliad has already written about the “constructive participation” of GOLOS and other organizations financed by the United States.

It is worth mentioning that the American establishment is not hiding its interest in making Russian elections pass in accordance with the United States’ desired results. The U.S. will continue to help Russian citizens and non-governmental organizations as the presidential elections in Russia are coming closer. U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner spoke about it at a press conference in Washington.

“The United States has supported and, as I just said, will continue to support those citizens and non-governmental organizations that are working for free and fair elections in Russia,” Interfax cites Toner as saying.

According to Toner’s words, Washington spent over $9 million to finance and prepare Russian non-governmental organizations for the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections.

“We have, I know, spent more than $9 million to support free and transparent processes for Russia’s upcoming elections. And you know, again, our interest is to support these NGOs that support the process, not necessarily to support — never frankly to support any given political party,” he noted.

Russian political scientists and experts on elections consider that there is nothing extraordinary in Clinton’s, Carney’s and Toner’s statements, but that all these statements have no influence on the political situation in Russia.

Vitaly Ivanov, the director of the Institute for Politics and State Law, notes that Clinton has the right to comment on the domestic political situation in Russia. “She can afford it. We cannot forbid her to speak about it,” Ivanov said to the Vzgliad, adding that Russia also has the right to ignore Clinton’s appeals.

“Russia may direct some offensive remarks toward Mrs. Clinton. It is a normal part of international communication: to exchange such power statements that demonstrate concern about partners’ domestic affairs. It used to be this way, it still is and it will be in the future,” emphasized the expert.

In regards to Clinton’s appeal to take action on the recommendations coming from observer missions, Ivanov noted that “Russia is a sovereign state” and must not validate recommendations of the State Department.

Igor Bogdanov, the chief executive of the Russian Foundation for Free Elections and chairman of the coordination council of NPOs for the protection of electoral rights, when interviewed by the Vzgliad, he noted that he did not distinguish Mrs. Clinton herself among other international observers. “Observers from other international organizations, who took the floor in the International Information Center, uttered entirely diverse information about how the elections had passed and what had happened during them,” claimed Bogdanov.

“I judge from that information, which I received through my hotline, I would not say that the election campaign in question differed much from the previous election campaigns, both federal and regional. There were no incidences that could cause the elections to be judged unfair or not transparent. On the contrary, this election campaign compares favorably by many criteria even in the background of critical complaints,” noted the director of RFFE.

Bogdanov told how, in his opinion, the election campaign passed: “All the observers noted the lack of tension during the candidate registration process. There was no tension during the pre-election period either. Excessive conflict was also absent on election day and during vote counting. We can see it from the inside.”

According to the expert’s words, shortly before the presidential elections in the U.S., Hillary Clinton should turn her attention to the electoral system in her country. “I don’t know what Mrs. Clinton’s conclusions are based on. I would recommend she pay attention to the U.S. electoral system, which, in my mind, is not deprived of certain problems. The electoral colleges do not express the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Americans. Therefore, it’s better to examine carefully and look at her own problems. While discussing someone or something, at least, it is necessary to be in the know, to have an idea, to proceed from some facts. Groundless statements are unsubstantiated,” the expert noted.

In his turn, Georgy Fedorov, the chief executive of Civil Control (a NPO for the protection of voting rights) and a member of the Public Chamber, commented to Vzgliad that the Civil Control did not record serious problems during the elections: “In Russia a large mission of international observers operated – over 600 people.” “The Civil Control invited some tens of people including those from the U.S., England and Western European countries. They evaluated the elections and called them democratic. They recorded no problems from the legislative point of view,” said Fedorov.

In the NPO chief executive’s opinion, the U.S. does not have moral ground to judge. “There is no country in the world, whose reputation is more corrupt than the United States’. They may speak about human rights and democratic values, while dropping bombs in the center of Europe, as it did in Yugoslavia; overthrowing dictators in sovereign states, as it did in Iraq; supporting those, who lynch African leaders. It is the country, which has organized several attempts upon life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Until now, Americans have not dealt with Guantanamo, they have secret torture bases in many parts of the world, and so on,” claimed Fedorov.