This from the BBC yesterday, on Russia finally having had enough with OSCE election observation missions.  (thanks to Nathan for picking it up)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the protests, blaming "extremists". "Extremist forces must not be allowed to use political instability to create a threat to the democratic foundations of the Kyrgyz statehood," it said in a statement. Russia also rebuked the Organization for Security and Cooperation Äin EuropeÅ (OSCE) for declaring that the elections had fallen short of democratic standards. It urged the body to be "more responsible" in its election monitoring conclusions "to prevent destructive elements from using these assessments to justify their lawless actions".

As I noted in a previous post, the OSCE has recently decided its observation missions will actually observe and report, rather than whitewash, which is what it had been doing for most of the last 15 years.  OSCE post-election preliminary statements on fraudulent elections have become the spark for opposition protesting that, I argue, they always should have been. 

Russia plays this game, too.  The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the rump international organization of what once was the USSR, sends its own election observation delegations to elections in post soviet republics.  CIS missions vs. OSCE missions has been a sub plot of post soviet elections for years.  OSCE missions are bigger, more professional, have more observers, and have leaned more towards honest calls.  CIS missions are almost uniformly tiny, with perhaps 5 or six high level "diplomats", who show up with cameras, a guidebook, several bottles of vodka, and a whitewash prelminary statement already written by the Kremlin.

For a while, the OSCE vs. the CIS wasn’t much of a fight because the OSCE was whitewashing with as much vigor as the CIS.  Now that the OSCE is calling fraudulent election kettles black, the CIS, and Russia in particular, have been stepping it up in order to spin these elections as models of democracy by inserting as many tourists…er…I mean…election observation missions as possible.

Moldova recently barred 100 Russian "election observers" from entering the country for its March election (note the differences here and here).  In Ukraine last year, representatives of Russia’s preferred candidate Yanukovich, even went so far as to recruit and pay its own whitewash delegation $500 a day in an effort to counterbalance what was always going to be a tough OSCE preliminary statement.

Playing dueling observation missions off of each other has become a favorite passtime of corrupt election stealing governments.  In Kyrgystan, Radio Free Europe reported a typical reaction from the Kyrgyz government to the litany of statements, including one from a Chinese (?) election observation outfit.

But the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) observer mission served as a counterweight to the negative findings of OSCE observers, pointing out minor flaws while pronouncing the Kyrgyz elections "transparent, open, and legitimate" and the Tajik elections "free and transparent," RFE/RL reported.

The Kyrgyz government was quick to seize on the disparity. The official news agency Kabar devoted the bulk of a 28 February story on election assessments to positive findings by CIS observers, as well as by missions from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) and the "London International Democracy Institute" (an Internet search on various permutations of the organization’s title turned up no information). The report mentioned the OSCE report last, saving its negative findings for the penultimate paragraph.

The proliferation of dubious election observing organizations is not a coincidence, nor is it new.  Governments in the region benefit from having a menu of statements from which to choose the most glowing report card. 

What is new is the involvement of the Russian foreign ministry after the fact, arguing against election observation missions sparking demonstrations.  Is this an indication that Russia may interfere, perhaps militarily, in Kyrgystan?  I’d be surprised.  The Russian army, particularly in that neighborhood of Central Asia, likely isn’t prepared to manage daily drills, let alone invade a neighboring country. 

But the stakes are without doubt getting higher.  The developments in Ukraine and Georgia have made Russia look weak.  Russian authorities are trying to play to a Russian audience that increasingly sees its government on the wrong side of geopolitical tectonic plate shifting.  Dueling observation missions aren’t working anymore, and Russia may need to take it to another level if it is to succeed in propping up authoritarian regimes, including its own.

(This has been cross-posted from Democracy Guy.)