Стр. 24 - V

Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Author : V. Likhachev
Professor, Member of the Russian Central Election Commission, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipoten-
tiary
THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT and adminis-
tration of the Russian Federation includes an effec-
tive range of instruments and competences, with
each of its actors having its own important function.
All this, as the experience of the 21st century makes
evident, enables this system to efficiently tackle na-
tional and international threats and challenges to the
world order.
The law defines the Central Election Commission as
a collective state body established under election law. The commission organizes elections to
federal bodies of government. However, its activities extend beyond the Russian borders. It is
one of the entities through which Russia puts its foreign policy into practice and a serious actor
in international relations, especially in their segments relating to election systems.
Russian experience in organizing the international observation of presidential and State Duma
elections in Russia is becoming part of the practice of foreign electoral systems. This undoubt-
edly means that the international community needs a universal set of electoral rules. UN spe-
cialized bodies would be able to draw up such rules in collaboration with A-WEB.
One remarkable feature of the practice of the Russian Central Election Commission is close in-
terconnection of tradition and innovation. The commission's way of observing foreign elections
makes this obvious. This work, which enjoys energetic support from the Russian Foreign Min-
istry, plays a significant role in the commission's international activities due to the increasing in-
ternational recognition of the commission as a geopolitical actor, its ability to be a constructive
and objective election manager, and its strict compliance with generally accepted international
criteria and standards. The commission's observation of elections abroad is one of the priorities
set by the 2010 resolution "On the International Cooperation of the Central Election Commis-
sion of the Russian Federation in Regard to Election Systems." In 2015, commission officials
took part in monitoring parliamentary and regional elections in Mexico and Venezuela, general
elections in Argentina and Myanmar, and elections in other countries.
The commission used a well-tested contact-based methodology at all those elections and will
continue using it in the future. But the diversity of political environments across the world has
called for methodological innovation and diversification. For this reason, the commission has
designed a methodology for the remote observation of foreign elections. This methodology was
successfully tested in monitoring the Scottish independence referendum in 2015 and a general
election in Britain that year, the midterm elections for the U.S. Congress in 2014, the American
The Central Election Commission of Russia: International Activi-
ties and Resources