'Russia Has Discredited Itself in the Eyes of the World'

With hundreds of opposition demonstrators arrested over the weekend, it seems that Putin's Kremlin will do anything to cement its hold on power. German commentators see a black future for Russia.

AP

Former chess champion Garry Kasparov is detained by police during an opposition rally in Moscow on Saturday.

One week before Russia's Dec. 2 parliamentary elections, opposition protests in several cities ended in violence and mass detentions.

On Saturday, former chess champion Garry Kasparov and dozens of others were arrested during a protest rally in Moscow that drew several thousands. Kasparov was charged with organizing an unauthorized demonstration and sentenced by a Moscow court to five days imprisonment. Following his sentence, Kasparov, one of President Putin's most outspoken critics, said, "What you've heard is all lies." Two riot police testified that they had been ordered to arrest Kasparov. The wife of one of the other protestors, Sergei Konstantinov, claimed that he had been beaten unconscious in the courthouse and then carried out by police.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed concern over the Russian authorities' "aggressive tactics" and the arrest of opposition figures.

On Sunday, violent repression and arrests ended protest rallies at Palace Square, near the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Reports over the number detained varied -- the Russian police spoke of "dozens" while demonstrators estimated 200. Hundreds of police, armed with shields and truncheons, went at the demonstrators who were yelling "Russia without Putin." Among those detained was Boris Nemstov, a contender for the presidential elections in March. He was released soon after.

His party and several others have complained of constant harassment during the election campaign. The Kremlin is doing everything within its power (more...) to ensure that Putin's United Russia party wins the elections on Dec. 2. Speculation is rife that Putin hopes to maintain a hold on power beyond May, when term limitations force him to step down from the presidency. Should his party win elections in December, however, Putin may take over the position of prime minister.

The arrests on Sunday began when several young men marching from the headquarters of the Yabloko party towards the rally on Palace Square began flying flags for the banned National Bolshevik Party. Yabloko spokeswoman Yevgenia Dillendorf speculated that the provocateurs had been planted by the regime to justify the wave of arrests that followed, 10 of whom were parliamentary candidates for Yabloko.

Alexander Shurshev, one of the Yabloko candidates detained, said that some of those detained were driven to and released on the city's outskirts, while others were held at police stations. "Riot police beat me over the head with clubs and I lost consciousness," he told Associated Press.

Russia's national television stations, all of which are under state control (more...), ignored the opposition rallies entirely. Germany's papers are more dismayed than surprised by this latest round of repressive measures.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"With the arrest of Gary Kasparov in Moscow, the state power overstepped its bounds. The opposition leader has been silenced often enough, but this time he was sentenced to five days imprisonment in summary proceedings that made a mockery of legal process. Moscow has now permanently discredited itself in the eyes of the world. That the Kremlin is willing to take this risk, suggests bad times to come. Until now, the powermongers had at least tried to maintain appearances and defend the claim to be part of European civilisation."

"Kasparov is just the beginning; the end will be a 'time of chaos' in which Russia loses its connection to the modern world once and for all. ... For 300 years, Russia has been panting, killing itself to catch up with Europe. Putin is putting an end to its struggle. It's going to be unpleasant."

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"Many in the West seem to have gotten used to the fact Kremlin critics are repressed, beaten and put away in Putin's Russia. Even the Social Democrats in Germany's federal government don't want to come down too hard on the Kremlin boss -- although political repression has assumed alarming proportions."

"It's all the more shocking that the opposition is ... not able to pose a threat. Their ability to mobilize is too weak, both at the voting booth and on the streets. Only a few hundreds took part in the massive demonstrations on the weekend."

"Putin can actually laugh at this joke of an opposition. What's frightening is that he goes at it with full force anyway -- meaning that the Kremlin doesn't hesitate to go after the big names, like the former vice-premier and presidential candidate Boris Nemzov, who was arrested for a brief period yesterday. The message here is clear as glass: Criticism will be nipped in the bud, no matter who it comes from."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Kasparov has finally succeeded in getting the attention of the West for a moment. But in Russia, his voice is too weak to be heard, which makes the brutality of state power all the more suprising. It seems that Russia's leadership is less afraid of international criticism than whatever is not fully under its control within its own borders. In reality, Putin and his accomplices have no faith in the stability of the system they love to laud. They are not willing to leave anything to chance -- definitely not free elections."

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"In the polling booths, Russia's citizens will be presented with one choice: to legitimate the existing order. That's why the Kremlin's propagandists aren't talking about the elections any more. They've turned the elections into a referendum on support of Putin. In the dictatorship of the law, the highest court finds nothing to suggest that the President is abusing his office for the benefit of his party in these elections. In Russia, laws are something like wall-to-wall carpeting -- they always lead to whatever is required. And if that's not enough, they're curtailed. Putin had the election laws changed to ensure that his opponents have no chance. Most parties have been shut out of the elections entirely. And Russia's unwillingness to host international observers bodes ill

Election Observers Unwelcome

Moscow has been accused of denying visas to 70 international observers who were assigned to monitor the Dec. 2 parliamentary elections. The Russian goverment denies the claim, while playing down the need for any electoral monitoring whatsoever.

DPA

Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't seem keen on allowing in elections inspectors.

It's well known that Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps the media in Russia on a short leash. Now it looks as though his strangle-hold on power (more...) and public opinion is being extended to include international observers of the upcoming elections.

On Friday, the Warsaw office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced that it will be unable to send anyone to monitor the parliamentary elections coming up on Dec. 2.

"We have not received a single visa for the 70 observers," OSCE spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said. "We have tried everything. ... But we sadly now have to conclude that it is not possible."

Russia's top election official, Vladimir Churov, denied that Moscow has refused the visas, and claimed the documents were waiting in Warsaw at the headquarters of the election monitoring office, the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). In response to the OSCE's announcement, Churov told a news conference at the Russian Embassy in Berlin on Friday, "I don't understand what could have prompted such a decision." Russian Embassy officials in Warsaw were not available to comment.

In Russia, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov likewise maintained that no restrictions were placed on the observation mission. "The Russian Federation is totally complying with its obligations, as part of the OSCE," he told the AP.

Furthermore, Peskov claimed that the absence of foreign observers needn't raise concerns about the fairness of balloting. There cannot be "the slightest doubts of the legality of the electoral process in Russia," he said. "It's a purely democratic process."

Gunnarsdottir said that even if the visas were to be issued, a "meaningful" observation of the elections would no longer be possible, as the candidates have already registered and the media coverage has already begun. "Time is not running out -- time has run out for us," Gunnarsdottir told AP.

In 1990, all 56 member states of OSCE committed to having their elections monitored by international observers. The OSCE regularly organizes these missions.

and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said, "Putin's regime has no interest in revealing its dark side." He called the upcoming elections "a mockery used by the Kremlin as a decoration to cover up the true colors of the regime."

In a meeting held before OSCE's announcement on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pushed for discussion of Russian-backed proposals for greater restrictions on election observer missions. Russia and other ex-Soviet countries whose elections have been viewed critically by Western observers favor limits on the numbers of observers and the extent of criticism permitted.

The OSCE and the USA have been critical (more...) of the Russian government for only allowing 300 to 400 observers into the country for the upcoming elections. Twelve hundred observers attended the last parliamentary elections in 2003, which OSCE observers called a step backward for democracy. They charged the state of employing the media and other agents to drum up support for the main Kremlin-backed party.

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