PARIS (AFP) — World leaders congratulated Dmitry Medvedev on his victory in Russia's presidential elections, but some messages were tempered by doubts over the democratic credentials of his landslide win.
The United States, European Union, Britain, Germany and Italy all offered the president-elect their best wishes Monday after he trounced his few challengers with more than 70 percent of the vote.
The sole Western observer mission insisted the election was "not fair" and had failed to provide a level playing field for all the candidates.
US National security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President George W. Bush "looks forward" to working with the new Russian leader, but withheld comment on the conduct of the election.
"I'll leave that to the election observers," Johndroe said.
The White House has found itself at loggerheads with its old Cold War rival in recent months, particularly over plans to site elements of a US anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech republic.
A spokesman for Angela Merkel said the German chancellor also looked forward to working with Medvedev, while acknowledging that Sunday's polls and the campaign that preceded them had left something to be desired.
"It is without doubt the case that during the election campaign situations arose where it became clear that democratic rules were not always upheld," the spokesman said.
"The government made it clear in the run-up to Sunday's vote that we regret that the international observers could not carry out their job as well as one would wish.
"But this does not change the fact that following his election success, the chancellor wishes Mr Medvedev good luck and success with the difficult task ahead."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also sent his congratulations, but his spokesman stressed that London would "judge the new government on its actions and the results of those actions."
Relations between London and Moscow have nosedived since the death by poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Russia has declined to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, whom British officials have said they want to charge with Litvinenko's murder.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered his congratulations in a phone call to Medvedev and invited him to visit "as soon as he wishes," Sarkozy's office said in a statement.
But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was less than effusive about the election result which he said carried echoes of the Stalin era.
"I know there was no real competition in this election," Kouchner told France Inter radio, adding: "The election was conducted Russian-style, with a victory known in advance."
Kouchner said President Vladimir Putin's successor was elected with "very surprising figures, not quite worthy of Stalin, but 70 percent is not bad."
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said he had sent a congratulatory letter to Medvedev, but noted that Russia was a "different democracy from those we are used to in the West."
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso also sent his congratulations, saying he hoped that, under Medvedev, Moscow and Brussels would "consolidate and develop their strategic partnership."
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said the election result was "a clear sign of support" for the policies of President Putin, who is expected to keep a controlling hand on Russian affairs by serving as Medvedev's prime minister.
Outside Europe, Japan was quick to voice hopes that Medvedev would work to resolve a festering territorial row that has long soured bilateral relations.
Japan and Russia have never signed a peace treaty formally ending World War II due to Tokyo's claims over four islands off Japan's northern coast seized by Soviet troops in 1945.
"We hope that the new president will bring a resolution to the territorial problem on which the two nations' arguments have remained apart for a long time," chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said.
And in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said only that Afghanistan would "respect the will of the Russian people."
Russia, which has long competed with other powers for influence in Afghanistan, is seeking a greater role in economic projects there after the humiliating Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
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