Parliament keeps an eye on elections in Russia

The upcoming presidential election in Russia is being closely monitored by the European Parliament after last year's parliamentary elections there were marred by allegations of fraud and irregularities. On 16 February MEPs adopted a resolution calling on Russia to carry out reforms to strengthen democracy and allow free and fair elections. But what causes the Parliament to be so concerned?

Observers of last year's parliamentary elections pointed out many irregularities. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which had sent an election observation mission for the elections for the State Duma on 4 December 2011, noted  violations of procedure, media bias, state interference and a lack of independence of the election administration. There have been calls for the results to be annulled and people in Russia continue to protest

There are now concerns that Russia will again fail to meet international election standards for the presidential elections on 4 March. Vladimir Putin, who has been serving as prime minister after finishing two terms as president, is the clear favourite to win the election according to opinion polls. Only four other contenders will run. One reason for this is the high registration thresholds: independent candidates had to submit at least two million signatures in their support in order to participate. For example one of the opposition leaders,  Grigory Yavlinsky, was denied registration as about a quarter of all signatures he collected were declared invalid by the election administration.

Against this background, the European Parliament urges the Russian authorities to introduce far-reaching reforms to facilitate the registration of political parties and presidential candidates. MEPs would also like to see more freedom for the media and more protection of fundamental rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. The Parliament expresses concerns about  barring opposition candidates from participating as this undermines political competition and pluralism. The Parliament also supports the efforts of the OSCE and other international and Russian organisations to monitor elections and calls on them to follow up on investigations of irregularities. 

The Parliament also brought up other concerns about recent events in Russia. It spoke out against the implementation of criminal laws against civil society organisations, including Sakharov prize-winning Memorial and the banning of their materials on grounds of extremism, as well as against legislation adopted by regional authorities to restrict gay rights. It also called for a thorough investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney who brought to light allegations of wide-scale tax fraud. He was then arrested on charges of tax fraud and died in police custody days before the one-year limit on being held without trial was due to expire.