Kazakhstan, Astana, March 13 /Trend D.Mukhtarov/
The decision on whether to invite international observers to the elections depends on the situation in any given country, Director of the Parliamentary Institute of Nur Otan People's Democratic Party of Kazakhstan Bolat Baikadamov said.
"The decision on whether to invite international observers to the elections may depend on a variety of issues regardless of country's attitude toward these missions," Baikadamov told Trend. In early March, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev reiterated that
Astana may refuse to allow OSCE observer missions during future elections in the country.
"For example, many mission participants positively reflected on the electoral process before the election, and then suddenly started repeating the same phrases about the non-compliance with standards ...
If it continues, we will have to refuse such missions in the future -- in all elections," Nazarbayev said.
Nazarbayev noted that it's not just his opinion, "it is expressed throughout the CIS."
At the same time, Baikadamov believes such decisions should depend on the situation.
Russia was in need of missions during the presidential election on March 4, as Putin needed legitimate elections supported by observers from other countries, Baikadamov said.
The Kazakh expert noted that Russia was one of the first CIS countries to raise the question of OSCE's double standards" "The trend is clearly discernible: Western observers are very critical of the election procedure in the CIS. They apply the standards, of
course, overrated than in other countries," Baikadamov believes.
He stressed that when Kazakhstan positioned itself to chair the OSCE, the Russian leadership spoke of the need for change in the OSCE, and in particular this applied to the observer mission and its attitude toward elections in the CIS.
"This was stated in Warsaw, Vienna, and Brussels," he said.
In his view, foreign observer missions do not consider that the CIS and Western countries are different in terms of their speed of democratic development.
He said that when suсh missions "act universally," they miss out on certain things."