Europe watchdog scraps plans to monitor Russia vote

By Michael Stott

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) election body ODIHR said it would not send a monitoring mission for the March 2 election, which President Vladimir Putin's protege Dmitry Medvedev is expected to win easily.

In a separate announcement, the OSCE's parliamentary assembly also scrapped plans to watch the Russian election. This leaves a group from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as the only Western body still planning to watch next month's vote.

"We believe such actions by ODIHR are unacceptable ... This position can only cause us to feel the deepest regret," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Slovenia, holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, expressed its support for ODIHR's election observation work.

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Russia said it was complying fully with its international obligations to the OSCE and accused the watchdog of attempting to politicise the dispute.

The dispute echoed a similar row last year, when the ODIHR pulled out of monitoring Russia's parliamentary election over similar issues, though the OSCE's parliamentary assembly did send a team. Putin's United Russia party went on to win a landslide victory.

He said the head of an advance delegation currently in Moscow, Andreas Gross, would deal with the issue at a scheduled news conference on Friday.