European Organizations’ Representatives Evaluate Belarusian Elections :: Charter'97 :: News

The International Limited Election Observation Mission at the presidential election in Belarus and the members of the Parliamentary Troika held a press conference and aired the preliminary findings and conclusions. The mission considers that the election fails to meet the OSCE commitments for democratic elections formulated in the 1990 Copenhagen Document and the Council of Europe standards. Radio Liberty offers a more detailed account of the press conference:

The results of the work of the ODIHR mission were voiced by the Special Co-ordinator of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, for the OSCE election observation mission in Belarus, Mr. Kimmo Kiljunen. He emphasized the three main conclusions:

“Unfortunately, Belarus`s presidential elections did not meet international standards for free, democratic elections. The process of the presidential elections in 2001 does not meet norms of OSCE for democratic election, formulated in the Copenhagen document of 1990 and the European Council standards.

The mission hails and acknowledges the emergence of civil society , that is an important basis for development of democratic political structures from within the growing pluralistic civil society The isolation of the country is not in the interest of the Belarus people and is not conducive to strengthening democratic development.”.

There were fundamental flaws in the electoral process, some of which are specific to the political situation in Belarus., including:

- a political regime that is not accustomed to and does everything in its power to block the opposition;

- executive structures with extensive powers, including rule by presidential decree, that are not balanced with commensurate legislative controls, and that allow the arbitrary changing of the electoral environment;

- a legislative framework that still fails to ensure the independence of election administration bodies, the integrity of the voting results tabulation process, free and fair campaign conditions, and imposes excessive restrictions for campaigning and observers;

- a campaign of intimidation directed against opposition activists, domestic observation organizations, opposition and independent media, and a smear campaign against international observers and other factors.

The last but not the least named Mr. Kimmo Kiljunen are highly biased State-controlled media and censorship against the independent print media.

How will the international community deal with Belarus in the future? The OCSE/ODIHR document declares: “The international community is especially concerned about explicit threats made recently by highest government representatives against the opposition and independent media and activists. Developments in this area will remain under special international scrutiny.”

And the opinion of the head of the PACE delegation Stef Goris: “Belarus today is the only country that have not the status of the PACE member. 10 millions of the Belarus citizens cannot become members of the European democratic family. But we should not lose hope. We are ready to work both with the non-governmental structures and the authorities. We hope that they will take certain commitments. So the Belarusian delegation is invited to the Plenary Sitting of the PACE in Strasbourg in December”.

A journalist of the British magazine The Economist asked Mr. Kimmo Kiljunen if Lukashenko can be regarded as Belarusian president now. The answer of the Special Co-ordinator was the following: “It is no business of ours to legitimize the results or not. Our task is to give assessment of the elections”.