Umakhan Umakhanov: CSTO PA observers’ work is an important element of the Organization’s operation

Umakhan Umakhanov, deputy Chairman of the Standing Commission on Socioeconomic and Legal Issues of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots, believes international observation of elections in CSTO Member States to be an important element of monitoring the military and political situation in the Organization’s area of responsibility.
– Over the past few years, CSTO Member States’ parliamentarians have increasingly often been invited by the competent bodies to act as international observers at parliamentary and presidential elections in the CSTO States. What are the reasons for such invitations, what is their meaning, and why is the process of international election observation by sitting parliamentarians of the CSTO States preferable to the monitoring by officials?
– First of all, sitting deputies of the CSTO parliaments have themselves gone through the crucible of election campaigns and understand better than anyone else which technical shortcomings in the voting process can or cannot affect the results of the election campaign. All CSTO States strive to conduct an exemplary election campaign in full compliance with the national electoral legislation and democratic principles. And here we come to the second argument in favour of parliamentarian observers: in our work, we are guided by clear criteria stipulated in the Chisinau Convention, the Convention on Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights and Freedoms in the State Parties of the Commonwealth of Independent States (Chisinau, October 7, 2002). Even the title of the document signed within the CIS framework shows that it clearly defines the standards of democratic elections, which fully prevents arbitrary interpretations of the same facts in different situations.
– Does the affiliation of international observers to the CSTO, a defence organization, matter?
– We must also remember that we all come from one big country: the USSR. Formation of all our states has not been easy, but all of us have lasted these thirty years, having preserved and developed statehood. And having maintained allied relations within the CSTO framework. It is important when an observer is not a callous scorekeeper, often a politically biased one, guided by who knows which principles and documents, but a parliamentarian of a friendly state who works in accordance with the principles recognized within the CIS framework.
Incidentally, Umakhan Umakhanov is not a novice in the field of international election observation: by the invitation of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, on January 10, 2021, he was part of the CSTO mission to monitor the election to the Mazhilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan and was coordinating the work of the CSTO PA international observers representing the parliaments of the Republic of Armenia, Republic of Belarus, Kyrgyz Republic, Russian Federation and Republic of Tajikistan.
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