Russia accuses watchdog of sabotage

Published: 10:57PM Friday February 01, 2008 Source: Reuters

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Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Europe's main election watchdog of seeking to sabotage plans for monitoring the March 2 presidential election, which President Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate is expected to win.
   
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) monitoring body ODIHR was trying to undermine the vote by politicising the situation.
   
"Open sabotage continues from within the OSCE for our proposals of joint election monitoring on a collective, agreed upon and mutually acceptable basis," a spokesman said.
   
The growing row threatened a repeat of last year's stand-off, when the ODIHR pulled out of monitoring Russia's December parliamentary election after Moscow invited only a small group of monitors late in the campaign.
   
The ODIHR warned Russia this week that it would not monitor March's presidential vote unless Moscow eased restrictions on its work.
   
It said Russia had invited too few people for too short a time and asked Moscow to expand the mission and allow its observers to monitor more of the presidential election campaign.

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