President about prospects on European convention on elections standards - 26 September, 2002

Russia, jointly with other members of the Association of Election Organisers of Central and Eastern Europe, has submitted for its consideration the draft European Convention on the Standards of Elections, Suffrage and Freedoms. This was stated by Vladimir Putin.

Addressing on Thursday the participants of the Association's international conference, Vladimir Putin expressed the hope that "it can become a good beginning for the work over a common international legal document for the whole of Europe." In his opinion, the initiatives for bringing closer the approaches in the sphere of suffrage are very promising, because they logically fit in with the process of legal cooperation between the European countries and also remove the possibility of double standards in assessing democracy and freedom in holding elections.

"We understand that the election-legal system will not ensure true democracy if it is not installed into genuinely democratic institutions of the entire society," underscored the head of the Russian state. "Torn out of the context of the democratic contents of society, it /election-legal system/ can serve as a screen for anti-democratic standards in the whole of society."