Russia rejects US criticism of proposed reforms
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-15 13:44

Russia rejected on Wednesday US criticism of sweeping political changes proposed by President Vladimir Putin, saying this was a matter strictly for Moscow to decide.

"First of all, the processes that are under way in Russia are our internal affair," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Kazakhstan, said of comments by Secretary of State Colin Powell that Putin's proposed changes to electoral law could erode democracy.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell gestures during a sit down interview with members of the news media at the State Department in Washington September 14, 2004. Powell said on Tuesday he had concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin's sweeping political change. [Reuters]

Lavrov, speaking in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a meeting of ex-Soviet states, said Washington had no right to impose its own model of democracy on anyone else.

"And it is at least strange that, while talking about a certain 'pulling back', as he (Powell) put it, on some of the democratic reforms in the Russian Federation, he tried to assert yet one more time the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone's model," he said.

"We, for our part, do not comment on the US system of presidential elections, for instance."

In an interview with Reuters, Powell said Putin's proposed changes to Russian electoral law was "pulling back on some of the democratic reforms." He pledged to raise his concerns with the Russian leadership.

Putin on Monday proposed ending direct election of Russia's regional governors and having candidates instead put forward by the president and approved by local assemblies. He also called for an end to voting in constituencies for parliamentary elections, a common means for opposition politicians to win seats in the legislature.

Putin presented the reforms as vital for a national drive to defeat terrorism in the aftermath of the bloody school siege this month in which more than 320 people, half of them children, were killed.

His critics say he is exploiting the bloodshed to roll back the democratic gains of post-Soviet Russia.

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