European watchdog rejects Russian election offer

By Christian Lowe and Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia offered on Tuesday to ease restrictions on international observers monitoring its March 2 presidential vote, but Europe's main election watchdog said the concessions did not go far enough.

The issue of the monitors has caused friction between Western governments, which want reassurances the vote will be free and fair, and a Kremlin which has firmly rejected what it calls foreign interference in the election.

The election to choose a successor for President Vladimir Putin is set to be dominated by Dmitry Medvedev, the 42-year-old chairman of gas giant Gazprom who is buoyed by Putin's endorsement and an economy at its strongest in a generation.

A Medvedev win would ensure that Putin, 55, retains considerable power: Medvedev is his loyal ally and Putin has said he may stay on as prime minister.

Russia's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a decision by election chiefs to bar former prime minister and Kremlin critic Mikhail Kasyanov from running against Medvedev. He said he was the victim of a Kremlin plot to keep him off the ballot.

Election watchdog the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has said it may pull out of monitoring the election after Russia restricted the number of observers and said they could only come 3 days before polling day.

The European Union has urged Russia to remove what it called "significant restrictions" on the monitoring mission. Western governments see ODIHR's assessment as the best yardstick of whether an election was fair.

Russian election officials on Tuesday gave some ground, saying the monitors could come a week earlier.

"We think that is a normal period for them to familiarize themselves with the situation," Elena Dubrovina, a member of Russia's Central Election Commission, told Reuters.

DEAL POSSIBLE?

But a spokesman for ODIHR said that did not go far enough. It says monitors need to be in place from February 15 at the latest if they are to carry out meaningful work.

The Russian offer "does not mean what we had outlined as the minimum requirement for any sort of effective observation," said the spokesman.

One Western diplomat said a deal was possible that would allow ODIHR to monitor the vote. "It could be easily resolved if there was a political will on both sides since there's only a few days between them," said the diplomat.

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold Kasyanov's disqualification revived opposition allegations the vote will be slanted in favor of Medvedev, who has about 70 percent support in opinion polls.

The Central Election Commission said last month Kasyanov could not run because some of the 2 million signatures he submitted to back his bid were forged. He had no chance of winning the vote as polls gave him 1 percent support.