The credibility of parliamentary elections in Russia was plunged into doubt yesterday when the main European democratic watchdog cancelled its observer mission.

In an unprecedented move, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) abandoned attempts to monitor the election and accused the Kremlin of obstructing its mission.

“Despite repeated attempts to attain entry visas into the Russian Federation for ODIHR experts and observers, entry visas have continuously been denied,” Christian Strohal, the director of the organisation, said in a statement.

“The ODIHR therefore concludes that the authorities of the Russian Federation remain unwilling to receive ODIHR observers in a timely and co-operative manner and co-operate fully with them. It is with regret that the ODIHR recognises that it will be unable to deliver its mandate under these circumstances.”

The decision will cast a shadow over the outcome of the vote on December 2 in which President Putin’s United Russia party is expected to score a crushing victory. It will also heighten tensions between Russia and Europe before the crucial presidential election to choose Mr Putin’s successor on March 2.

The ODIHR is the elections arm of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), whose 56 member states form the world’s largest regional security body. Support for democracy is a key element of the OSCE’s work and members are obliged to invite ODIHR monitors to observe their elections.

But Russia has sought to restrict the activities of the ODIHR in monitoring the election to the Duma, the Russian parliament. It became the first OSCE member to place limits on the number of international observers when Vladimir Churov, the head of the Central Election Commission, issued only 300 invitations, less than a third of the 1,100 that came on the previous occasion.

The ODIHR sent more than 400 observers to those parliamentary elections in 2003 but was told that it could have only 70 now. The invitations were also issued at the last possible moment, on October 31, prompting complaints that the observer team would be unable to monitor the election campaign properly.

With just over two weeks before polling day and with voting already under way in some remote regions of Russia, ODIHR officials say that they are still being refused visas to enter the country.

Urdur Gunnarsdottir, the spokeswoman for the ODIHR in Warsaw, told The Times: “We have been facing delays all along the way, but what tipped the balance was the delay in issuing visas. We have not been able to deploy people to start preparations despite repeated assurances from Russia that visas would be issued.

“There have also been indications that they would attempt to limit our areas of work in Moscow. This whole situation has been extraordinary from the very beginning.”

Observers were in Russia from October 23 for the 2003 elections, which took place on December 7, she said, adding: “We need time if we are to do our work properly, starting from the pre-election campaign.”

However, the decision has split the OSCE, which still plans to send observers to Russia from the body’s Parliamentary Assembly (PA) on November 28. Göran Lennmarker, the PA president, met Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, in Moscow yesterday to challenge attempts to limit its mission to 30 observers.

“We can’t see a reason why there should be a restriction on the number of observers. With 95,000 polling stations here, there will be a very limited observation in any case,” Mr Lennmarker said. “But we don’t accept the principle of limiting the number of election observers.”

Moscow dismissed the cancellation of the ODIHR mission. Mikhail Kamynin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “Elections are our sovereign right and they are directed at strengthening democracy in our country.”

Privately, however, the Kremlin will be delighted that it has divided the OSCE. Russia has never hidden its hostility to the ODIHR and has been pushing hard for reforms to restrict the abilities of international observers to pass judgment on the democratic legitimacy of elections.

It will take the ODIHR’s refusal to come to Moscow as an opportunity to insist that the monitoring process of the OSCE has lost credibility with member states. Other former Soviet republics with inconsistent democratic records, including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are backing Moscow’s demands for reform.

They hope to get a proposal discussed at the next ministerial council of the OSCE, on November 28 in Madrid. This would cap the number of ODIHR monitors at 50 for any election and bar observers from making judgments until the host country released its own official results.

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