Romney criticises Russia in latest stop

US Republican presidential candidate held up Poland's transition from communism to democracy as an example for the rest of the world while saying yesterday that Russia had faltered on the path to freedom.

WARSAW // The US Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, held up Poland's transition from communism to democracy as an example for the rest of the world while saying yesterday that Russia had faltered on the path to freedom.

Mr Romney was speaking in the Polish capital at the end of a three-country foreign tour that also took him to Britain and Israel. The trip was supposed to show voters back home that the Republican could serve on the world stage just as well as the president, Barack Obama, but it has been marked by gaffes and missteps.

In a speech in the library of Warsaw University, Mr Romney evoked Poland's struggles two decades ago to bring down the Iron Curtain and praised its efforts since then to embrace a smaller government and market economy, the same model he says is needed to revive spluttering US growth.

"In the 1980s, when other nations doubted that political tyranny could ever be faced down or overcome, the answer was, 'look to Poland'," Mr Romney said. "And today, as some wonder about the way forward out of economic recession and fiscal crisis, the answer is to 'look to Poland' once again."