It’s a while off, but a European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee has preempted what we will doubtless be hearing as a complaint in December, namely that the parliamentary elections will not have been conducted with sufficient freedom and legitimacy.  Following a public hearing held by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the MEP Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Committee, attendees had this to say:

“The OSCE mission has not yet been invited to monitor the elections, a lot of pressure has been applied to all election observers, journalists’ ID cards are being confiscated and the opposition parties are not represented in the Electoral Commission”, warned Lilia Shibanova, Executive Director of Golos, a Russian association established to defend electoral rights of citizens and to foster civil society in the country.