BHHRG

The West and its surrogate agencies have shown themselves resolutely uninterested in the conduct of elections in Transnistria. After a month of impasse on the PMR-Ukrainian border, the OSCE in Vienna announced that it would not recognise the results of any referendum held in Transnistria to allow the local population to express its opinion on its fate.[1]
Igor Smirnov has been president of the breakaway region since 1990. During an interview with BHHRG he pointed out wearily how often the West – the “international community” as it calls itself - has ignored elections in Transnistria or prejudged them. Last December’s parliamentary elections had been won by the opposition but the West still denies legitimacy to such polls even though it accepts, for instance, that Montenegro’s Milo Djukanović has held power as premier or president or now again premier for almost 17 years. Despite the fact that the West has been happy to accept the disintegration of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, it remains strangely fixated on preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the post-Soviet states whose claim to political legitimacy is often shaky to put it mildly.[2]

“If our citizens allow Paksas’s political corpse to be raised again, Lithuania will face the gloomy prospect of becoming a black hole on the outskirts of Europe.”
Lietuvos Rytas  (7th April 2004)

BHHRG has followed the progress of Lithuania’s political travails closely since the surprise election of Rolandas Paksas as the country’s president in January, 2003. The Group visited Lithuania in February 2004 as Paksas fought off allegations of corruption and compromising the country’s security  by going over the heads of his parliamentary opponents to appeal directly to the people in a series of nationwide town hall meetings. BHHRG concluded that much of the information disseminated in the West about Mr. Paksas was biased and uninformed. The roots of the crisis fundamental to any democracy were never fully explored, namely, who gives a politician legitimacy ? Is it the voters or non-elected bodies like the constitutional court?