Russia accuses Europe vote watchdog of "sabotage"

By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused Europe's main election watchdog of trying to sabotage plans for monitoring its presidential election next month, the latest round of an increasingly bitter dispute with the West over democracy.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) monitoring body ODIHR was trying to politicise monitoring of the March 2 election, which President Vladimir Putin's candidate is expected to win easily.

The ODIHR, unhappy that its monitors will only be allowed to start work three days before the vote, rejected suggestions it was playing politics and said Moscow was trying to rewrite its international obligations.

The growing row threatened a repeat of last year's standoff, when ODIHR monitors scrapped plans to monitor Russia's parliamentary elections after complaining of obstructions from Moscow. Putin's party went on to win a landslide victory.

"Open sabotage continues from within the OSCE for our proposals of joint election monitoring on a collective, agreed upon and mutually acceptable basis," said Russian foreign ministry official Sergei Ryabkov.

"I would like to underline clearly: we will fulfil our obligations to the letter," he said, adding that Moscow would not go further to accommodate the ODIHR.

The Warsaw-based ODIHR disputed Moscow's compliance and said that in 150 previous missions, its experts had followed the electoral process for months rather than days.

Russia was "attempting a unilateral re-interpretation" of its commitments, said ODIHR spokesman Curtis Budden, in a reaction to the Foreign Ministry's comments.