Democracy Disinvited

What might Russian President Putin have to hide from election monitors?

THERE'S NO doubt that the ticket led by Russian President Vladimir Putin will win a landslide victory in December's parliamentary elections. Mr. Putin is genuinely popular. Also, his government dominates the media, which saturate the country with his propaganda. And serious opposition candidates have been excluded from the ballot. So why is Mr. Putin afraid of international election monitors?

After weeks of stalling, Moscow told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe this week that it would be allowed to send no more than 70 observers to monitor the vote, compared with 450 in the 2003 election. The time frame of the mission will also be curtailed: Normally, OSCE observers arrive months in advance, but this year they will have at best a few weeks. An OSCE spokesman called the restrictions "unprecedented" and said that they "may seriously limit the possibility for a meaningful observation."

One reason for the shutdown is straightforward: The Kremlin didn't appreciate the OSCE's frank assessment of the last elections, which were called "fundamentally unfair" by the head of the observer mission. But Mr. Putin also seems to have a larger agenda. The OSCE is a Cold War-era organization composed of 56 nations in Europe, North America and Central Asia; its most useful mission in recent years has been carrying out rigorous election monitoring, especially in newly democratic countries. Its critiques of electoral fraud in Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan the next year helped prompt pro-democracy revolutions in those countries.

Mr. Putin is probably not too worried about such an uprising in Russia. But he'd like to ensure that other former Soviet republics dominated by pro-Moscow autocrats are not hindered in rigging elections. His government has submitted a proposal to the OSCE that would neuter the election monitoring body, limiting all observer missions to 50 persons and prohibiting reports from being released without Russian agreement. Sadly, the OSCE looks like a soft target for the Kremlin's hardball diplomacy. Its current chairman, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, has kept quiet about these brazen demands while trying to strike a deal with the Kremlin.

Then, too, Mr. Putin may also have a little rigging of his own in mind. The Post's Peter Finn was told by a current member of parliament that Russian regional governors, who are appointed by the president, have been instructed to deliver no less than 70 percent of the vote for Mr. Putin's United Russia party. That would elect a parliamentary bloc large enough to change the constitution -- and, perhaps, remove the limit on presidential terms that requires Mr. Putin to leave office next spring. If the president's men decide to stuff a ballot box or three in pursuit of their 70 percent quotas, a crippled OSCE mission isn't likely to catch them.