Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: elections wielded as weapon of war

Ruth Green, IBA Multimedia JournalistFriday 30 September 2022

Russians took to the polls from 9-11 September, marking the country’s first nationwide elections since it invaded Ukraine in February. Voting took place amidst an ongoing crackdown on civil society and freedom of speech that has intensified markedly since the war began.

The polls opened as Ukraine launched a major military counteroffensive in Kharkiv and Kherson. ‘Elections at this point carry a function of showing to the population that everything is “in order” in the country and the political and legal systems work as usual,’ says Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Interim Director of the Russia Institute and Professor of Russian Politics at King’s College London.

Three-day voting periods were introduced in Russia in 2020 to minimise Covid-19 transmission but have heightened concerns of electoral fraud. Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) said it received 93 reports of potential election violations. Independent Russian election monitor, Golos, which has been labelled a ‘foreign agent’ by the authorities, recorded more than 1,700 reports of irregularities, most of which occurred in Moscow.

Andrei Kolesnikov, a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, says the significance of the results of Russia’s elections varied considerably. ‘The gubernatorial election is meaningless,’ he says, but ‘the municipal elections in Moscow, despite the fact that many candidates were not allowed, still made sense, because some normal candidates passed and the municipal level is very important now – it is the only possible field for the opposition.’

According to official data, the results favoured the ruling party, United Russia, with pro-government candidates winning all gubernatorial seats and more than 50 per cent of the vote in five out of six legislative assembly elections. United Russia candidates were also reported to have taken 1,100 of around 1,400 seats in the municipal elections in Moscow.

The weekend of voting marked the first time that online ballots have been cast nationwide. This followed seven regions piloting e-voting in September 2021’s parliamentary elections. Despite concerns that the move to mass online voting would make it even easier for the authorities to falsify ballots, the system was rolled out across all regions after Russian President Putin signed legislation in March approving the use of e-voting across the country.

Jailed opposition candidate Alexei Navalny urged people to engage in ‘smart voting’ – a tactical strategy designed to drive votes away from the government’s preferred candidates. However, Sharafutdinova says the greater reliance on electronic voting increased the risk of vote-rigging. ‘The electronic voting that was tried in 2021 was rolled out this time as a main mechanism of controlling the results,’ she says. ‘In the context of war and repression against any social and political activism, opposition candidates did not have a chance.’

Anne Ramberg, Co-Chair of the IBA Human Rights Institute, agrees that elections in Russia have been marred by ‘irregularities’ for some time. ‘Already last year, the September election for the Duma were considered to be marked by extensive irregularities according to the election observers and the international media covering the elections,’ she says. ‘This has been the case in recent elections including the re-election of Mr Putin. The way Mr Navalny was disqualified is only one example. There is no realistic way for the opposition to gain power through elections. And it is worth remembering that Russia has never experienced a democratic transfer of power from a rival political party.’

Despite the results, the elections can be viewed as a litmus test for domestic support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Independent Russia news website Meduza reported that nearly two dozen municipal deputies in Moscow and St. Petersburg have since signed a petition demanding Putin’s resignation.

This could suggest that domestic support for the war is waning, says Ramberg. ‘In my view that indicates that the internal criticism of Mr Putin and the war is much bigger than had been anticipated,’ she says. ‘Having in mind the powers of the security forces and the strong support from the church, opposition may have grown despite this…[and] important segments of the population may have realised the severe crimes that Mr Putin is committing in Ukraine.’

Kolesnikov previously worked for several leading Russian publications and is the former managing editor of Novaya Gazeta. He says media outlets are continuing to overcome government censorship to increase awareness inside Russia of what’s happening in Ukraine. ‘The free media works partly from abroad, you can read them through a VPN, and YouTube, which has not yet been blocked, is very popular,’ he says.

Novaya Gazeta has been designated as a ‘foreign agent’ and in September a Moscow court revoked the newspaper’s licence to publish inside Russia. Kolesnikov says the newspaper and other independent media will continue to counteract Russia’s attack on the free press. ‘The situation is very difficult, but nevertheless, another site has started up,’ he says. ‘I'm sure it too will be blocked, but this game is played by all independent media, opening new projects or sites every time.’

Image credit: Police on street in Moscow, Russia. March 12, 2022. Igor/AdobeStock.com

Myanmar: IBAHRI releases report and webinar

Friday 30 September 2022

The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) published a report entitled Crackdown on Human Rights Defenders, Opposition, and the Right to a Fair Trial in Myanmar on 2 September. The report sheds light on the deteriorating situation in Myanmar since the coup d’état on 1 February 2021 and was produced with the contributions of, and upon consultation with, numerous independent experts. This report highlights the severe undermining of the principle of separation of powers and the rule of law in Myanmar and the analysis reveals that many individuals have been, and are currently being, denied their right to a fair trial. Read the report here.

Following the release of the report, the IBAHRI put out a statement on 11 September raising concerns about the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi. Given the age and health disorders of Myanmar’s ousted elected leader Suu Kyi, the harshness of the recent three-year jail sentence with ‘labour’ or ‘hard labour’ handed to her for purported election fraud in Myanmar’s 2020 polls is of particular concern to the IBAHRI. The statement condemns the extra prison term and previous sentences against Suu Kyi, which would see her imprisoned for 20 years. Read the full statement.

The IBAHRI hosted a webinar on 22 September entitled ‘Human rights in Myanmar’. The panel discussed the impact of the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar on human rights and the subsequent crackdown on lawyers, judges, political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders. These human rights violations add to the long litany of atrocities perpetrated by the military against the Rohingya. Now that the military is in power, the chances of the Rohingya seeing justice and accountability in Myanmar are zero and the Rohingya face a heightened risk.

Watch the webinar recording

Climate justice: Prioritising ‘loss and damage’ essential at COP27 talks

Ruth Green, IBA Multimedia JournalistTuesday 4 October 2022

Severe flooding devastated Pakistan in late August, killing more than 1,500 people, causing billions of dollars in damage and affecting more than 15 per cent of the country’s population. As global leaders prepare to gather in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (‘COP27’) in November, there are growing calls for high-income countries to shoulder the burden of climate-related losses and damages.

‘The problem that we are facing is so vast and the scale is so big that we’ve never seen the like of it before,’ says Hina Jilani, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and a member of The Elders. ‘We realise very well that this would have been a big challenge for any government, even if they were well resourced and the economy was not in a shambles like it is right now in Pakistan.’

Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has warned that flood damage to infrastructure and the costs associated with rehabilitation could exceed $10bn. In the wake of the flooding, the International Monetary Fund issued a $1.1bn bailout to help the country avoid defaulting on its debts.

Loss and damage – the challenge of how to alleviate the world’s poorest nations from the most extreme impacts of the climate crisis in a manner that is fair and equitable – continues to be one of the most contentious issues in global climate negotiations.

The devastation caused by Pakistan’s floods has increased pressure on developed nations to establish a dedicated fund to compensate countries for climate-driven losses and this is set to be a key talking point at COP27.

Harjeet Singh, Head of Global Political Strategy at the Climate Action Network, has been campaigning heavily to ensure this issue remains front and centre at the upcoming talks. ‘It is the most important issue, and we’ll continue to put pressure on policymakers to make sure that we get a lost and damage finance facility’, he says.

Singh says it’s vitally important in the context of the continued failure by wealthy nations to meet previous financial pledges. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that high-income countries have fallen almost $17bn short of delivering the pledged $100bn in climate finance a year by 2020. The OECD estimates that the donor countries’ collective target will not be reached until at least 2023.

Singh says this has only highlighted the need for loss and damage to be firmly on the COP27 agenda. ‘There’s still this shortfall and the majority of the money remains on loan, which means that we are not helping developing countries to adopt a greener pathway’, he says. ‘We have to look at this in the wider context of how we’ve failed on mitigation, we’ve failed on adaptation and where we have reached is climate impacts are everywhere and people suffering loss and damage.’

There has been some growing awareness internationally of the immediacy of the problem. In September, Denmark announced it would direct more than $13m in ‘loss and damage’ support to the Sahel region in north-western Africa and other areas that have suffered an impact, marking the first time a UN member state has pledged to compensate communities affected by the climate crisis.

That same month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told members of the General Assembly in its annual gathering in New York that developed countries needed to tax windfall profits of fossil fuel companies and direct that money ‘to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis; and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices’.

The concept of a ‘just transition’ must be central to climate negotiations going forward, says Andrea Forabosco, Energy Transition Officer of the IBA Oil and Gas Law Committee and Senior Counsel on energy transition issues at Shell International. ‘A key area of focus for COP27 and COP28 is going to be on an energy transition that is fair and equitable for developing countries, which is one of the key dimensions of a “just transition”’, he says.

Forabosco says companies will need clearer objectives if they are to decarbonise their operations successfully. ‘It’s only if the entire system shifts that there’s going to be a positive outcome’, he says. ‘The trend is for more clarity on what exactly organisations are supposed to do and higher expectations. Eventually it will be a discussion on how organisations are going to deliver and on how they are going to become more sustainable.’

Image credit: Pakistan floods in the SWAT valley. trentinness/AdobeStock.com