Russia skewers US election as undemocratic, the worst in the world
By Julian Pecquet -
The Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an
undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the countrys own
commitment to free and fair elections.
The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following
reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election
monitors at the polls.
The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up
a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such
as the lack of polling places in Indian country and the short-shift given to
third-party candidates by the American media.
The U.S. electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared
this week, is the worst in the world.
Observers say the attacks against America's election system are largely
fueled by domestic politics in Russia.
Voting has become a touchy subject for the Kremlin following the massive
demonstrations that pro-democracy activists staged against the legislative
elections that were held in December. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
said the turmoil raised serious concern.
Further, observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) said President Vladimir Putin's election to a third six-year
term in March was marred by serious problems.
The U.S-Russia relationship has become a part of the chess game of domestic
Russian politics, said Matthew Rojansky, the deputy director of the Russia
and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
It's not surprising that attacking the United States and trying to
diminish the credibility of what is said by Americans and what comes from
Washington is very much now in the interest of the Russian authorities,
Rojansky said.
"It says something about the state of the relationship. There's not a lot of
trust right now. We're defaulting to a lot of bad old habits, this kind of
tit-for-tat criticism, which was common during the Cold War."
Members of Putins government have paid particular attention to the move by
Texas and Iowa to reject election monitoring by the OSCE, a 56-member group
that the United States has relied on to criticize flawed elections in other
countries, including Russia.
This year's Republican-led backlash against the OSCE a group that has
monitored six U.S. elections since 2002 without incident was quickly
seized upon by Russian officials such as Churov, who is widely known in the
country as the magician for his role in helping Putin and his United
Russia party stay in power.
It is strange why the U.S. authorities, who often accuse other countries of
being not democratic enough, prefer not to notice such violation of
democracy in their own country, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement Wednesday.
Still, Rojansky said, much of the criticism appears to be aimed at silencing
critics at home and abroad. Russia has taken steps to silence independent
election monitors, which get funding from the United States and other
foreign sources.
The attacks are part of a broader backlash against the United States in
Russia, according to Rojansky. The Kremlin threw out the U.S. Agency for
International Development this fall and announced last month that it was
ending the 20-year U.S.-Russia partnership to contain loose nukes.
It's worse this year because the relationship has become much more overtly
political, he said.
It's sort of an across-the-board, you America are unwilling to acknowledge
the reality that Russia today is different than Russia in 1993 when you
first negotiated all these agreements, and basically it is a political thing
and it is a power thing: We're back on our feet, and you cannot run these
things in the sort of heavy-handed way that you did right after the end of
the Cold War.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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