The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is engaged in a bitter battle with Moscow. The OSCE has already abandoned its efforts to monitor the Duma elections in December and is struggling to obtain Russian permission to observe the March 2008 presidential elections. In addition, Moscow is trying to mobilize its allies to pressure the OSCE to sharply curtail its election monitoring program in the former Soviet republics. Despite its deteriorating relations with Russia, the OSCE continues to pursue an active reform agenda in Central Asia.

BACKGROUND: The Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) organizes observation teams to monitor elections in OSCE member states. It can employ hundreds of people, both local residents as well as foreigners, on long- and short-term missions.  For several years, ODIHR monitors have complained about numerous problems in the elections conducted in the former Soviet republics.

In response, the governments of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)—a Moscow-led military and political alliance that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well as Russia—have countered with a barrage of criticisms aimed at the OSCE. First, they protest that the OSCE has become excessively preoccupied with democracy and human rights in their countries, to the neglect of enhancing their security and economic development. In addition, they charge that some OSCE bodies enjoy unwarranted autonomy from the member governments. CSTO representatives insist that collective intergovernmental bodies should strictly control the OSCE bureaucracy. They also regularly complain of bias and inefficient management (especially wasted financial resources) within the OSCE bureaucracy.

Another primarily Russian grievance is that the OSCE is excessively accommodating to nongovernmental organizations that oppose the policies of the Putin administration. As part of their commitment to democracy promotion, OSCE bodies try to solicit the perspectives of citizen groups as well as governments. Russian authorities fear this process unduly empowers their opponents. The Russian delegation walked out when representatives of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which is banned in the Russian Federation but not in some European countries, spoke at the September 2007 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw.

Russian officials also depict the OSCE as having fallen under the control of Washington and its allies. For example, in his comments to foreign reporters following OHDIR’s decision not to send observers to the December 2007 Duma elections, Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), indicated that Moscow believes that the OSCE has become a tool of U.S. foreign policy: “If Washington controls ODIHR they should say it openly: ‘Yes, we control ODIHR, we finance it and we decide where it goes and where it does not’.” President Putin himself in late November accused Washington of being behind the decision, adding this would affect bilateral relations.

In September 2007, CSTO member governments circulated a series of proposed measures at the OSCE’s headquarters in Vienna whose combined effect, if adopted, would considerably weaken the ODIHR’s ability to monitor elections in the former Soviet republics. The plans would reduce the size of the OSCE election missions to 50 or fewer people and limit the number of monitors from any one country to under five percent of that total. In addition, the observers could not make public assessments of the vote until after government bodies had announced the official results. Since government representatives would suffer under no such prohibition, the incumbent authorities would be able to use the media, which has fallen under state control in many of the CSTO countries, to characterize the elections as they wished without much competition. The publication of the OSCE mission’s final report would require the approval of all 55 OSCE members, effectively giving any government veto rights. Churov subsequently warned that Russia might not invite OSCE observers to monitor its March 2 presidential elections unless the OSCE adopted Russia’s proposals at the meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council, its governing body, scheduled to occur on November 29 in Madrid.

Although the CSTO members have not yet secured the support of the other OSCE members for these proposals, they can impose some of them unilaterally by establishing stringent standards for foreign observers of their national elections. Russia has already provided an example of this tactic regarding its December 2007 Duma elections. This year, the Russian authorities waited much longer than previously before inviting the OSCE observers. They also refused to invite the traditional advanced assessment team, which would have determined what kind of mission Russia would have needed.

When the Russian government finally issued the invitation on October 30, it severely reduced the permissible number of OSCE monitors. Arguing that the limited resources available to Russia’s Central Electoral Commission required it to limit the total number of government-accredited foreign observers to 400, Churov indicated that 70 OHDIR observers could oversee the Duma ballot. After further delays in securing visas, ODIHR concluded they lacked adequate preparation time to effectively carry out their mission and decided to cancel the entire visit.

IMPLICATIONS: It now remains to be seen whether the other CSTO members will adopt similar tactics. Thus far, the Central Asian states continue to cooperate with the OSCE despite its escalating dispute with Moscow.

For example, from September 20-22, 2007, the OSCE Center in Astana organized a three-day meeting of representatives from the public water authorities, other government agencies, and the private sectors of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to discuss deepening bilateral cooperation on joint water management. In particular, they considered creating a joint Transboundary River Basin Council for the Chu and Talas River. The council would serve as a venue for addressing commercial, environmental and other issues of interest to all stakeholders.

Like many OSCE economic development activities, the Kazakh-Kyrgyz water project also aims to enhance political relations among the participating countries, both by reducing a possible source of conflict and by encouraging the states to collaborate on mutually beneficial activities. Barataly Koshmatov, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, observed that, “Proper management and joint share of natural water wealth helps build solid ground for political co-operation and serves as a good example of collaboration and enhancing in the use of transboundary water resources in the Central Asian region.”

At the same time that OHDIR’s ties with Moscow were deteriorating, the Kazakh government hosted a visiting OSCE delegation, headed by OHDIR director Christian Strohal, in early November. The two parties affirmed their commitment to cooperate on democracy and human rights issues despite the OSCE’s concerns that Kazakhstan’s August 2007 legislative elections, while demonstrating progress compared with previous ballots, failed to meet certain international standards.

Kazakhstani officials’ continued interest in collaborating with the OSCE presumably reflects their desire to assume the OSCE’s rotating chairmanship in 2009. A few weeks later, however, Kyrgyzstan allowed ODIHR to begin its election observation mission for its December 16 parliamentary elections on November 24. The authorities also permitted the OSCE to send its standard advanced assessment mission, which determined the number of observers needed and other issues related to the monitoring effort, on November 5-6.

Most recently, on November 20, 2007, ODIHR and the OSCE Center in Ashgabat organized, with the approval of Turkmenistan’s government, a two-day seminar on domestic election observation for over 70 representatives from the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, the Women’s Union, the Youth Organization and the National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights.

CONCLUSIONS: Although the expansion of NATO and the EU has led to a decrease of the OSCE’s influence in most of Europe, the organization remains important in Central Asian countries since these states have little chance of gaining entry into the two Euro-Atlantic institutions. In addition, while Central Asian governments disapprove of the OSCE’s stress on improving their respect for human rights and insistence on reforming their other domestic policies, the EU and NATO are making similar demands.  The OSCE’s continuing attractiveness is seen in the Kazakh government’s determined drive to become OSCE chair in 2009.

The OSCE faces more serious competition from the CSTO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In October 2002, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) heads of states established their own CIS Election Monitoring Organization. Its members have regularly endorsed almost every election that has occurred in a member country since that time, even when the elections have been deemed unfair by OSCE observers.  The CIS will deploy approximately one hundred observers to monitor Russia’s December 2007 Duma elections. The SCO has also developed its own election monitors. They too will send observers to the Duma election and, presumably, give the ballot their blessing as well.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Director of Program Management at Hudson Institute.