Kyrgyzstan poll puts focus on election monitor :: Charter'97 :: News

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe faces a tough test in next month`s presidential polls in Kyrgyzstan: it is not just Kyrgyzstan that will be under scrutiny but also the OSCE.

The former Soviet republic is choosing a successor to Aslan Akayev, who fled Kyrgyzstan in March after a popular revolt in which government buildings were stormed. The run-up to the elections has been marred by violent demonstrations that have fuelled concerns about political stability.

The OSCE, the Europe-wide security body, is trying to maintain calm and preparing to monitor the July 10 vote. Its poll assessment, to be delivered the day after the election, will play a key role in determining whether the results are accepted as legitimate in Kyrgyzstan and the rest of the world.

"We are investing as much as possible in attempting to reach a peaceful resolution of the situation," says Dmitrij Rupel, the Slovenian foreign minister and chairman-in-office of the 55-state organisation.

As Mr Rupel knows well, while the organisation`s efforts in monitoring elections are strongly supported by the US and by European Union countries, they are coming under increasing fire from Russia and its allies in the former Soviet Union.

Moscow resented the OSCE`s role in the elections that helped bring to power two west-oriented presidents in its former empire in the past 18 months: Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine. The Kremlin is concerned that future polls could bring similar shifts.

This is not an immediate concern in Kyrgyzstan, where the main worry of the US and Russia is the possibility of unrest. American and Russian diplomats alike have supported recent moves by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the acting president, and Felix Kulov, the deputy prime minister and a key rival, to run together.

However, Russia`s fear is that if the OSCE does a good job in Kyrgyzstan, its prestige will be enhanced before controversial polls elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, notably the Kazakhstan presidential elections expected in December.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the veteran president who has ruled since 1989, is expected to run again. He is popular but has consistently buttressed his power with repression, including controls on opposition politicians and journalists.

Mr Nazarbayev has tried to maintain good relations with Moscow and Washington. But his authoritarian political instincts are close to those of President Vladimir Putin of Russia - and Mr Putin would be loath to see another authoritarian ruler fall or even come under serious electoral pressure.

Similar considerations apply in Belarus, where the dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko faces elections next year.

The OSCE, which was set up in the cold war, started monitoring elections in the early 1990s in the emerging ex-Communist democracies. Moscow did not begin to criticise the process seriously until Mr Putin took power in 2000 and sought to re-assert Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.

Russia accuses the OSCE of "double standards", saying it monitors elections east of Vienna more rigorously than in the west, where it says there are also irregularities. It complains of bias in selecting monitors and in formulating election assessments.

In response to Russian pressure, the OSCE has expanded election monitoring in the west. But it has resisted Moscow`s demands for the crucial election assessments to be published by the OSCE`s permanent council instead of the election missions themselves.

The Russian official says that this would lead to more balanced judgments. But US officials argue that giving the permanent council control of election reports could politicise the assessments.

Russia is also making little progress in changing the composition of missions. Of 24 election mission heads deployed since January 2004, 13 were Americans or Britons.