VILNIUS, 7 December 2011 – Vilija Aleknaite Abramikiene (Lithuania), rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Political Affairs and Security, hosted a discussion Wednesday with experts, parliamentarians and civil society from Belarus alongside the Ministerial Council in Vilnius. This meeting provided parliamentarians the chance to meet face to face with Belarusian opposition and gain first-hand knowledge about the political,

BBC 5 December 2011 Международные наблюдатели ОБСЕ и ПАСЕ вслед за своими российскими коллегами сообщили о множестве нарушений на выборах в Госдуму, включая вбросы бюллетеней и вмешательство властей в ход голосования. "Сами выборы отмечены вмешательством органов власти", - заявил на пресс-конференции в Москве в понедельник президент ПАСЕ Петрос Эфтимиу, возглавлявший объединенную группу европейских наблюдателей. По его словам, "был целый ряд

OSCE PA President Petros Efthymiou, Special Co-ordinator to lead the OSCE short-term observer mission, talks with an election official at a local polling station in Moscow, 4 December 2011. MOSCOW, 5 December 2011 – Despite the lack of a level playing field during the Russian State Duma elections, voters took advantage of their right to express their choice, the international observers concluded in a statement issued today. The observers noted

RIA NOVOSTI 5 December 2011 Despite the lack of a level playing field, Russian voters made use of their right to express their choice in parliamentary elections, observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on Monday. The governing United Russia party won 238 of 450 seats in Sunday's elections to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, a significant drop compared to the 315 seats it won in the 2007

Wall Street Journal 2 December 2011 MOSCOW – Russian prosecutors accused the country's largest independent election-monitoring group of violating election laws, days before a parliamentary vote in which observers and opposition groups forecast widespread fraud. The move comes as the Kremlin battles voter apathy and indications that the lofty personal appeal of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is beginning to wane. The main pro-Kremlin political

Spencer Oliver, Petros Efthymiou and Grigory Melkoniants, Regional Network Manager of GOLOS. MOSCOW, 1 December 2011 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Petros Efthymiou, appointed by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, to lead the short-term observers for the Russian elections on 4 December, arrived in Moscow with the team of experts on Monday as final preparations for the 2011 Election Observation