Recruiting European political figures to legitimize Vladimir Putin’s power is becoming complicated, but Moscow continues to find solutions. In a report published Friday April 26, the German NGO European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) reveals the identity of 183 “Foreign “observers” and “experts”” invited by the Russian authorities to observe the presidential election in March 2024 which led to the election for a fifth term of Vladimir Putin. A vote described by the European Parliament as“illegitimate and undemocratic”and which was preceded by the death of opponent Alexeï Navalny, in a Russian prison, on February 16.
Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Mr. Putin’s regime has invited elected officials and European media personalities to Russia to legitimize violations of international law (territorial annexations) and corrupted democratic rules (rigged ballots) to the Russian public as well as the international community. The invited foreign personalities are exhibited in the Russian media as a guarantee “democratic”, approving the actions of the Kremlin. In the 2018 presidential elections, French observers included, among others, former ambassador to Moscow Jean Cadet, National Rally deputy Gilbert Collard, Union of Democrats and Independents senator Joël Guérriau, and Thierry Mariani, then member of the Les Républicains party.
At the same time, the Russian authorities have gradually reduced their tolerance towards independent and qualified observers, notably those from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Russia is a member. For the last presidential election, the very high level of fraud (media censorship, exclusion and repression of any real opposition, careful selection of “rival candidates”control of voters even in the polling stations, stuffing of ballot boxes and falsification of results) led the Kremlin to organize a sham observation while all independent observation was banned.
Staging
This staging, under the aegis of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Russia, consisted of inviting 1,115 “international observers and experts” coming from 129 countries. “ We know of cases where observers were contacted by pseudo-NGOs, by the Civic Chamber of Russia and by the Federal Senate”, signals the president of the EPDE board of directors, Stefanie Schiffer. The report could not determine whether the observers were paid by Russia, but Mme Schiffer suspects that they were at least reimbursed for the trip, taking the example of a German guest, a regional deputy, having declared the reimbursement of his expenses.
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