By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 17, 2007

MOSCOW, Nov. 16 -- Europe's principal election watchdog group said Friday it will not send a delegation to observe parliamentary elections in Russia next month, citing "delays and restrictions" imposed by the Russian government.

The decision opens a significant breach between Moscow and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), an international organization that Russia embraced after the fall of communism but now regards as an unwelcome and biased judge.

U.S. and European Union diplomats say Russia's efforts to limit the group's work could establish a precedent for other countries that don't want their elections scrutinized.

The office is an arm of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It said in a statement that Russian authorities "remain unwilling to receive ODIHR observers in a timely and co-operative manner and co-operate fully with them."

Russian officials insisted Friday that they had met all of their obligations and that the most recent dispute with the office over issuing visas to observers was caused by the organization's own failure to complete the proper paperwork.

But among critics of the Kremlin, the dispute is likely to intensify questions about the legitimacy of the upcoming elections. Opposition figures have already faulted changes in election law and state control of the broadcast media.

"The Kremlin is preparing massive falsification, and the only obstacle that stood in their way was observation by civil society and professional foreign observers," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a member of parliament whose Republican Party was not registered and therefore not allowed to compete.

Russian officials played down the office's decision. "Elections are our internal affair and designed to promote democracy in our country," said Mikhail Kamynin, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

According to officials at the Warsaw-based office, Russia first delayed issuing an invitation to observers, thereby restricting the organization's ability to prepare for the election campaign. Authorities here then announced they would limit the number of observers to 70. For Russia's 2003 parliamentary elections, 450 long- and short-term observers were in the country.

"Despite repeated attempts to attain entry visa into the Russian Federation for ODIHR experts and observers, entry visas have continuously been denied. . . . It is with regret that the ODIHR recognizes that it will be unable to deliver its mandate under these circumstances," the monitoring office said in a statement.

The head of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly visited Moscow on Friday and said that his group, which is separate from the office, would send a small observation team and had been told by Russian officials that the team would face no restrictions. Observers from countries of the former Soviet Union also will monitor the vote.

The dispute is the culmination of long-simmering resentment over election monitoring by the office.

The office has repeatedly criticized elections in countries allied with Russia, detailing vote-rigging, media bias and the harassment of opposition candidates and parties.

Russian officials say the office's findings have been a catalyst for street protests that have overturned election results in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and led to sometimes-violent clashes in countries such as Azerbaijan and Belarus.

Supported by six other former Soviet republics, Russia circulated proposals at OSCE headquarters in Vienna to change the way the office approaches election monitoring. Its missions would be limited to 50 people, and the office would be barred from making any statements about the conduct of an election unless its opinion had been sanctioned by the OSCE's governing body. That would allow any member state to block an assessment it disliked.

Russian officials have repeatedly pointed out that the office sends many more observers to elections in the former Soviet Union than to elections in the West -- a disparity officials here regard as a double standard.

Russia's deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, noted this month that only 16 observers were in the United States for the 2006 congressional elections.