MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/. The decision by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE ODIHR) not to send its observers to monitor Russia’s upcoming parliamentary election won’t affect the election monitoring process, Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesman Oleg Gavrilov said on Friday.
"We believe that the ODIHR’s decision will in no way affect the quality of election monitoring particularly because if the office remains reluctant to visit Russia, many other independent monitoring organizations, which have also received our invitation, will gladly use its quota," he pointed out at a meeting of the Federation Council’s (the upper house of parliament) Temporary Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in Russia's Internal Affairs.
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the ODIHR said in a statement on Wednesday that it "will not be able to send observers for the upcoming elections to the Duma due to limitations imposed by Russian Federation authorities on the election observation." "The ability to independently determine the number of observers necessary for us to observe effectively and credibly is essential to all international observation," the statement quoted ODIHR Director Matteo Mecacci as saying.
The State Duma elections are scheduled for the Unified Election Day, September 19, 2021. Voting will last three days, from September 17 to 19. In addition, nine Russian constituent entities will hold direct elections of regional heads and 39 regions will elect regional assemblies. In three more regions, top officials will be elected by legislative assemblies.