Vice-President Of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Met With Belarusian Opposition Leaders

Kent Harstedt discussed the “elections” at a meeting with representatives of the Belarusian opposition.

The Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assmbly and the special coordinator of the OSCE at the parliamentary elections in Belarus Kent Harstedt discussed the election campaign at a meeting with representatives of the Belarusian opposition on August 14.

As the chairman of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka said to BelaPAN, apart from him, the co-chairman of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party Paval Sevyarynets, the chairman of the BPF Party (the Belarusian Popular Front Party) Aliaksei Yanukevich and the chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic party (Hramada) Iryna Veshtard also attended the meeting.

“Work in Belarus is not something new for Kent Harstedt. He communicated with both the authorities and the opposition during the last presidential elections, – Lyabedzka noted. – Harsted expressed regret that he couldn’t see any positive changes at this stage of the elections, and that the percentage of opposition members included in the precinct election commissions was smaller than in the previous elections. And now all focus is on the issue of how open and transparent the vote count process can be.”

“I emphasized the fact that the center-right coalition has already come forward with an initiative to make a joint statement that would contain the assessment of the election campaign. We have all grounds to state that this campaign does not meet the OSCE standards, and we cannot recognize its legitimacy. That draft statement is being prepared, it will be offered to all the democratic candidates,” – the politician said.

According to Lyabedzka, at the meeting he also focused on specific examples of non-registration of opposition candidates: “In fact, the leaders of the center-right coalition – Mikalai Kazlou and Ales Lahvinets, – are not registered as candidates, which is already a feature of this of election campaign. I also told that during the collection of signatures, some people received court summons for participation in the electoral pickets.”

According to the co-chairman of the organizing committee of the BCD Paval Sevyarynets, he told Harsted about numerous violations of the OSCE principles during the elections 2016, the ongoing repressions against political activists and the inability to register the party.

“Who have eyes, those see: there are no real elections in Belarus and the recognition of the legitimacy of the newly elected House of Representatives already contradicts the OSCE policy documents,” – Sevyarynets noted summarizing the results of the meeting.

Kent Harsted visits Belarus on August 13-17. He had meetings in the House of Representatives and the Central Election Commission today.