Putin to remain leader after leaving Kremlin Options

[ABLAT Staff]

Putin, Chavez Seek to Expand Power in Landmark Elections
Sunday , December 02, 2007
AP

MOSCOW —
Russia and Venezuela will hold key elections with major implications for two rivals of U.S. influence and interests abroad who seek to strengthen their grip on internal power.

Russians voted Sunday in a parliamentary election so dominated by President Vladimir Putin's party that the only question was whether it would win a strong majority of seats or a gargantuan, crushing share.

Venezuelans will head to the polls to vote on a package of constitutional reforms that would allow '21 Century Socialist' President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election in South America's leading oil exporter past his current 2012 term limit.

Russia's election follows months of increasingly acidic rhetoric aimed against the West and efforts, by law and by truncheon, to stifle opponents.

A huge win for Putin's United Russia party could pave the way for him to stay at the country's helm once his presidential term expires in the spring. The party casts the election as essentially a referendum on Putin's nearly eight years in office. Many of its campaign banners that festoon the capital read "Moscow is voting for Putin."

"He's a good man. Any woman would love to see him in her house," said Polina Amanyeva, 58, at a Moscow polling station where she said she voted for United Russia.

Putin is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third consecutive term as president in March. But he clearly wants to keep his hand on Russia's levers of power, and has raised the prospect of becoming prime minister; many supporters have suggested his becoming a "national leader," though what duties and powers that would entail are unclear.

He said that a strong showing for the party Sunday would give him the moral right to ensure that politicians in power continue his policies. Recent opinion polls suggest the party could win up to 80 percent of seats.

The dominance of United Russia provoked a fatalistic attitude in some voters.

"I think the result was pretty much planned in advance. I don't know who I'll vote for; I'll decide when I get to the booth," said Ivan Kudrashov as he entered Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral for Sunday Mass.

Alexander Mikhailov, 39, said outside a polling station in Moscow that he wanted to vote for a "truly democratic party" and chose the liberal opposition Yabloko because "there is no other choice."

In Moscow, about 15 gay-rights activists were detained at a polling station after a protest in which they scrawled "No to homophobia" on their ballots.

The voting started in the Far Eastern regions of Chukotka and Kamchatka while Muscovites were preparing for bed late Saturday. It concludes in the western exclave of Kaliningrad at 1 p.m. EST Sunday.

The vote is the first national ballot under new election laws that have been widely criticized as marginalizing opposition forces. All the seats will be awarded proportionately to how much of the vote a party receives; in previous elections, half the seats were distributed among candidates contesting a specific district, which allowed a few mavericks to get in.

The new laws also say a party must receive at least 7 percent of the national vote to get any seats — up from the previous 5 percent. A poll by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center in mid-November showed the Communists and two other parties hovering near the cutoff point.

Opposition parties, meanwhile, claim authorities have confiscated campaign materials and that the managers of halls have refused to rent them out for opposition meetings. Police have violently broken up opposition rallies — most recently in Moscow and St. Petersburg last weekend — and national television gives the parties hardly any coverage.

In contrast, Putin's speeches to supporters have been broadcast in full and repeated throughout evening newscasts.

Sunday's vote "meets none of the criteria of a free, fair and democratic election. In effect, it is not even an election," Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to Putin, wrote in a commentary for the Cato Institute think tank.

Under Putin, Russia has become inundated with oil revenue, a nascent middle class is developing and the war against separatists in Chechnya has faded into sporadic, small clashes. Russia's newly assertive military policy and inclination to taunt and criticize the West appeals strongly to Russians who suffered physically and emotionally in the early post-Soviet years.

Disdain for the West has been one of the dominating themes of the election. Putin has called his opponents "foreign-fed jackals" and warned that Russia will not tolerate meddling from abroad.

All those factors contribute to strong support for United Russia. But with the competition stifled and the election result seen as a foregone conclusion, some of the 107 million eligible to vote could find apathy, inertia or simply the winter weather keeping them away from the ballot box.

"It's clear that the current election will only stabilize the interests for one man, who has already run the country for a long time," said Musa Isayev, a 40-year-old resident of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

There's no minimum turnout needed for the election to be valid — another change from previous elections — but a low number of voters could undermine Putin's claim that Russia is developing into a true democracy, albeit one with only passing resemblance to Western democracies.

Authorities throughout Russia's 11 time zones appear determined to ensure a sizable turnout, through pressure, persuasion and even presents. One region is offering young voters passes to pools and sports facilities; another says new housing will be built in whichever village shows the most "mature" turnout.

Teachers, doctors and other workers have complained that their bosses are ordering them to vote — usually with the implication that they should vote for United Russia.

With Russia showing an increasingly assertive military policy and with foreign hunger growing for Russia's oil, gas and minerals, the election is of strong interest overseas. But international organizations are not able to watch as closely as they had hoped.

The elections-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, regarded in the West as the most authoritative assessor of whether an election is fair, canceled plans to send observers. It said Russia had delayed granting visas for so long that the organization would be unable to conduct a meaningful assessment of election preparations.

Russia has criticized monitoring by the OSCE elsewhere in the former Soviet Union as supporting protests that forced leadership changes, but it denied that it was impeding operations in Russia. Putin claimed the pullout was initiated by the United States in an effort to discredit the elections and his government.

A total of about 300 observers from various international organizations were scheduled to monitor the voting, including some from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization of Russia, China and ex-Soviet Central Asian republics.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314523,00.html

[ABLAT Staff]

International Observers Say Russia's Parliamentary Election Not Fair
Monday, December 03, 2007

MOSCOW — International observers and critics declared Monday that Russia's parliamentary elections failed to meet democratic standards, saying President Vladimir Putin and his government abused their power to favor the dominant Kremlin-backed party while opposition forces were harassed.

The strong criticism, coupled with sometimes-harsh assessments from European countries, highlighted a growing rift between Moscow and the West over Russia's perceived turn toward authoritarian rule under Putin.

The central conclusion was that Sunday's vote "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have," said Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. He said it was "not a fair election."

One of Putin's most vocal critics, opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparaov, said the election was one of the "dirtiest" in the nation's history.

"There are no illusions that what is being called elections was the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia," Kasparov said at a news conference, pointing at reports of massive vote violations.

"We fully realize that it's useless to seek the truth in Russian courts," he added.

Kasparov was arrested and jailed for five days after he led a protest rally in Moscow on Nov. 24.

Luc van den Brande, who headed the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pointed to a lack of real separation of the branches of power, saying that the vote appeared to be more of a referendum on Putin's policies than a parliamentary election.

Russia is a member of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, but often complains that the organizations are trying to impose Western standards on Russia and undermine Putin's concept of "managed democracy."

Van den Brande cited an "overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president on the campaign" and said there was "certainly abuse of administrative resources" to influence the outcome. He also said there were "flaws in the secrecy of the vote."

"Effectively, we can't say these were fair elections," he said at a news conference.

The two groups said in a joint statement that the elections were well organized, but added "there was not a level political playing field in Russia in 2007." They said the vote took place in an atmosphere that "seriously limited political competition," pointing at official interference, media coverage biased in the Kremlin's favor and new election laws that hindered political pluralism.

"There are a lot of concerns about the evolution of democracy" in Russia, van den Brande said. "Political stability and economic growth should go hand in hand with ... strengthened democracy."

Lennmarker cited reports of widespread harassment of opposition parties as one of the problems with the campaign.

"I'm sad to say, I hoped that this would be a step forward" for Russian democracy, he said. "But I don't think it is so."

In Berlin, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said "Russia was not a democracy and Russia is not a democracy."

Britain's 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."

The critical assessment came amid tension over election monitoring between Russia and the West, which is part of a broader, widening divide. Putin has taken an increasingly assertive stance in relations with the West, amid accusations that he has backtracked on democracy during nearly eight years as president.

The OSCE's elections-monitoring arm, regarded in the West as the most authoritative assessor of whether an election is fair, canceled plans to send observers. It said Russia had delayed granting visas for so long that the organization would be unable to conduct a meaningful assessment.

Russia had already come under criticism from the West for saying it would allow only 70 OSCE observers for the elections, far fewer than in the past. Russia, which is a member of the OSCE, accuses Western members of bias and is seeking to restrict the group's election-monitoring activities.

Lennmarker said it "would have been better if there had been more election observers" for Sunday's vote. Van den Brande said that it was "very important for the future — there should be no limits on elections observations."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314591,00.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Putin's party wins 'dirty' election
Russia's Communist Party vows to contest results, U.S. urges investigation
--MSNBC

Putin’s party overwhelms Russian election
Observers criticize vote as unfair after United Russia dominates opposition

MSNBC News Services
updated 5:15 a.m. ET Dec. 3, 2007

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin’s party won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election, official results showed Monday, giving him a mandate to shape Russia’s political landscape after his second term ends next year.

But opposition parties and International monitors cried foul. They said biased media coverage during the campaign, overt government support for Putin’s United Russia party and numerous irregularities during voting had skewed the outcome.

The Central Electoral Commission said that with almost all votes counted, United Russia had won 64.1 percent of votes, nearly six times as many as the nearest challenger, the Communist party. Two smaller pro-Kremlin groupings took another 16 percent of the vote and pro-Western parties won no seats.

The Kremlin hailed the vote as a strong personal endorsement for Putin, who campaigned vigorously for United Russia. Financial market analysts said the result would bolster stability and encourage investment.

“Russian voters spoke in favor of United Russia, thus supporting President Putin’s course, and spoke in favor of it being continued after the current president’s second term ends,” said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman.

What Putin will do after his second term ends next May unclear. Some observers say he could seek a third term as president, although he has said he will not change the constitution to pave the way for this.

Projections by the Electoral Commission showed pro-Kremlin parties would win about 393 of the 450 seats in the next State Duma, the lower house of parliament. That would be more than enough to allow them to change the constitution if they wished.

Opinion polls show Putin, a 55-year-old former KGB agent, is extremely popular after eight years of oil-fuelled economic growth. Voters credit him with restoring stability and national pride and like his tough nationalism and criticism of the West.

Opposition challenges legitimacy
The Communists, who won 11.6 percent of votes, said they would challenge the result in the courts. In a first reaction from abroad, the United States urged Russia to investigate the numerous reports of vote-rigging.

In Chechnya, a region in the North Caucasus which faces a separatist insurgency and is run by pro-Kremlin Ramzan Kadyrov, officials said a partial count showed United Russia had won 99.3 percent of the votes on a 99-percent turnout.

Europe’s main ODIHR election watchdog — seen in the West as a key yardstick of the fairness of an election — decided not to monitor the election, citing obstruction by Russian authorities.

The allegations included voters being offered the chance to win televisions and refrigerators if they backed United Russia, and a report people were being bussed around the city of St. Petersburg and voting in one polling station after another.

Grigory Melkonyans of Golos, Russia’s biggest independent election observer, said: “These are not isolated incidents. The complaints are from every corner of Russia.”

Liberal politician Boris Nemtsov called it “the most dishonest election in the history of modern Russia.”

Two European groups concluded that Sunday's vote "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have," said Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's parliamentary assembly. He said it was "not a fair election."

Luc van den Brande, who headed the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pointed to a lack of real separation of the branches of power, saying that the vote appeared to be more of a referendum on Putin's policies than a parliamentary election.

He cited an "overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president on the campaign" and said there was "certainly abuse of administrative resources" to influence the outcome. He also cited flaws in the secrecy of the vote.

"Effectively, we can't say these were fair elections," he said at a news conference.

The two groups said in a joint statement that the elections were well-organised, but added "there was not a level political playing field in Russia in 2007." They said the vote took place in an atmosphere that "seriously limited political competition," pointing at official interference, media coverage biased in the Kremlin's favor and new election laws that hindered political pluralism.

"There are a lot of concerns about the evolution of democracy" in Russia, van den Brande said.

Stability and continuity
Investors were not overly concerned. They said the result should provide stability and continuity and Putin would regard it as a clear mandate to retain control.

“Criticism over the handling of the election from foreign governments should be short-lived,” Chris Weafer, chief analyst at Moscow investment bank Uralsib, said.

Allegations of ballot fraud are unlikely to strike a chord with the majority of Russians who, opinion polls show, want Putin to stay on as a “national leader.” The opposition parties most critical of Putin have marginal support.

But the allegations could drive a new wedge between an increasingly assertive Moscow and the West, which Putin accused last week of “poking their snotty noses” in Russia’s affairs.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22061094/

[ABLAT Staff]

Putin loyalists to hold sway in Russia parliament
By Christian Lowe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's supporters will have complete control over parliament, figures from Sunday's election showed, and U.S. President George W. Bush told the Kremlin chief he had "sincere" concerns over the vote.

Election officials said on Tuesday the vote would translate into 393 seats in the 450-seat parliament for pro-Kremlin parties, giving Putin a power base when he leaves office next year and the option to change the constitution if he chooses.

Bush said the election -- which an influential group of foreign observers said was not fair -- came up in a telephone conversation with Putin. "I said we were sincere in our expressions of concern about the election," Bush told reporters at a Washington news conference.

Central Election commission chairman Vladimir Churov said Putin's United Russia would have 315 seats in the next parliament, while two parties sympathetic to the Kremlin will between them have a further 78 seats.

Putin, 55, has said he expects to maintain a grip on power after he steps down next year in line with a constitutional two-term limit.

Analysts say control of parliament will give him the clout to exercise influence without the trappings of presidential power. They speculate he could become the chamber's speaker.

The pro-Putin contingent in the next parliament will be big enough to change the constitution -- something analysts say Putin may seek to do to carve out a powerful role for himself when he steps down early next year.

Putin ran in the election as No. 1 on United Russia's election slate. The result confirmed his popularity as a leader who has overseen robust economic growth, and helped restore Russia's national pride.

United Russia had 297 seats in parliament at the end of the outgoing parliament.

Churov told reporters the nationalist LDPR party will have 40 seats and Fair Russia 38 seats in the new chamber. Putin can count on both those parties for support. The opposition Communists will have 57 seats.

QUESTIONS UNANSWERED

The constitution bans Putin from serving a third consecutive term. Russians and foreign investors are still seeking answers to the key questions of what he will do when his term ends next year, and whom he will endorse to replace him.

An international observer mission said Sunday's vote was marred by one-sided media coverage and the use of government resources to favor pro-Kremlin parties.

In a statement issued late on Monday, Russia's foreign ministry, said that assessment "gave rise to serious doubts."

"The Russian side will carefully study all views and recommendations that have been made with the aim of taking them properly into account -- in those cases where this is appropriate."

But it said a joint statement by observers from democracy watchdogs the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe contained "a collection of slogans not backed up with any hard facts."

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/i...452008120071204