Yarmoshyna: Main failure of elections was their unrecognition

The head of the Central Elections Commission complains the “parliamentary elections” in Belarus were recognised by the OSCE unfree and undemocratic.

The main failure of the “parliamentary elections” 2008 was absence of their full and unconditional recognition, Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the Central Commission on Elections and National Referendums, told in an interview to BelaPAN.

In her view, “in general, elections were successful”. “However, we can’t say they were ideal. As any electoral campaign, they have certain tense moments and failures,” the CEC head said.

The main task, “full and unconditional recognition of the elections by European partners as meeting the international standards”, put by Alyaksandr Lukashenka, wasn’t fulfilled, Lidziya Yarmoshyna noted.

At the same time, “the estimation, made by the OSCE this year, shows progress in comparison with the estimations we have received since 2004.”

The main result of the parliamentary elections 2008, according to the CEC head, was that 110 MPs were elected in the first stage. “In actual fact, this hasn’t happened in the country since 1990. We used to have two stages of elections, we used to rerun polls in some districts,” L. Yarmoshyna said.

It should be reminded that the ODIHR final report says “despite some minor improvements” the elections in Belarus fell short of OSCE commitments. In particular, electoral laws don’t allow “genuine political competition, and equal treatment of election competitors by the authorities” and continue “to present obstacles to the conduct of elections” in line with democratic commitments. Experts note the Electoral Code of Belarus “does not provide any clear mechanism for securely keeping the ballot boxes after the start of early voting, nor does it provide specific regulations for enhancing the integrity of the ballot”. Most opposition nominees were denied registration “for minor breaches of formal requirements,” the report underlines. According to experts of the mission, it creates conditions for falsification.