ST. PETERSBURG, May 13. /TASS/. Grigory Karasin, who heads the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament), has suggested scrutinizing the international monopoly held by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on assessing election results, since its observation missions often deliberately go beyond their powers.
"We need to adjust our approaches to international election observation institutions and, in the future, scrutinize the ODIHR’s international monopoly on assessing their results. Even more so, since the ODIHR is an executive structure with ensuing functions. I believe that the solution to this problem has well-defined legal prospects," he said at the committee’s offsite meeting on international election observation and countering foreign interference in voting procedures.
Karasin stressed that the international election observation institution often turns into a tool of external pressure on certain countries. "In order to do that, some states seek to use it as an artificial catalyst for mass unauthorized protests and attempted coups that they need that are dangerous to statehood and domestic political processes, along with attempts to legitimize their elected candidates, that is, pseudo-winners. We regularly see international missions deliberately going beyond the boundaries of their powers and giving subjective evaluation of human rights observance on the whole," he said.
He added that the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) continued to play a pivotal role in that area, adding that its head Matteo Mecacci is currently in Russia. "Much to our regret, the Office is still operating in the absence of a uniform and effective methodology for all OSCE participating states for monitoring elections and evaluating their results," Karasin said.