Heat From the West

“This election was conducted Russian style,” said Kimmo Kiljunen, president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said of the parliamentary vote on Sunday in Russia. “I mean, there was the strange situation that the executive nearly elected the legislature. It should actually be the other way around.”

The OSCE had been planning to monitor the election but called off its participation, claiming difficulties in obtaining visas. Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the organization’s withdrawal on American intervention, which he said was meant to discredit the election process.

The German government joined in the critic, saying clearly that “there was no free, equal, democratic election.

“Russia wasn’t a democracy and Russia isn’t a democracy,” government spokesman Thomas Steg said unambiguously on Monday, reiterating Chancellor Angela Merkel’s comment on Sunday that Germany’s path of political development could not be repeated in Russia.

Appeal to uphold rule of law in Russia

In addition to claims of vote-rigging, speculations have arisen that, with his party’s two-thirds after Sunday’s election, Putin would either try to maneuver his way back into the presidency following his second term or maintain political influence from outside the presidency. The Russian constitution limits heads of state to two consecutive terms.

“The elections were deliberately used to enable Putin to position himself,” Elmar Brock, a member of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and a foreign policy expert in the European Parliament, told Deutsche Welle.

The situation should be kept under observation, added Brock.

According to a spokeswoman from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday, the German government called on Russia’s political leaders not to change the constitution in a way that would lead the country away from rule of law or a multi-party system.

Discourse in Russia is opening, say experts

However, the Western leaders watching the events in Russia didn’t only point out negative trends.

Andreas Schockenhoff, coordinator for German-Russian cooperation in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle that Duma politicians as well as members of non-governmental organizations in Russia have become more willing to speak openly and engage in private discussion.

“That’s something that didn’t happen before,” said Schockenhoff. “I believe that it’s our job now to get involved in discussion in Russia and to have an influence so that Russia opens up and develops toward democracy. But we need patience and a long wind.”

Brock agreed that there are “new signs that Moscow is willing to talk.” He added that Russia and Europe had “many common interests“ and said he hoped that “Russia adopts a policy that takes these common interests into account.”

Like Schockenhoff, the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gerd Pöttering, also said that Europe needed to act. He recommended a “double strategy: talking and negotiating on the one hand but taking a critical view and giving our opinion on the other,” he said on the northern German broadcaster NDR.

Russia has assets to protect

According to Norbert Walter, chief political economist at Deutsche Bank, who also spoke with Deutsche Welle, Russia will not only hurt its Western partners but also itself if it doesn’t focus on democratic development.

“If Russia doesn’t make decisive progress, its current riches, which are a result of its oil and gas, will just go to the dogs,” said Walter.

The strength that Russia has developed over the past five years “through this political stabilization will become even stronger,” he added. “We’ll have to count on dealing with an even more self-confident Russia -- we in general in the West and we in Germany in particular.”