BHC: Local Elections Fell Short of Democratic Standards :: Charter'97 :: News

Local elections in Belarus, which were held on March 2, “fell short of meeting the norms and standards of the democratic society”, reads the statement, circulated by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. The election campaign was carried out with “violations of constitutional norms and other legislative acts of the Republic of Belarus, which significantly affected the final outcomes of the voting”.

First and foremost, BHC stresses that the existing electoral law “in some of its provisions doesn’t correspond to the international norms, nor defines effective mechanisms of thwarting falsification of the voting results”.

Electoral commissions of all levels, claims BHC human rights advocates, “were formed according to their loyalty to the authorities; in the whole of the country only a few people from democratic organizations were included into the commissions make-up”.

Opposition candidates “were exposed to discrimination: their teams had problems at signature-collection and agitation, the opponents haven’t been registered as candidates for the deputies or else were stripped of registration on doubtful pretexts and had no opportunity to appeal against the verdict in court”.

It is also pinpointed that “administrations prevented opposition candidates from meeting with the electorate in the buildings,” using “powerful administrative resources in order to promote certain candidates from government”.

Apart from that, reads the statement, the current electoral campaign has been accompanied by a drastic deterioration, as compared with previous years, of the situation with the freedom of speech in the country.

The human rights defenders also say this: “elections haven’t been transparent at all stages of electoral law – observers under various pretexts weren’t allowed to observe the formation and activities of electoral commissions on the spot”.

“The secrecy of voting has also been violated. Around 20% of citizens cast their votes outside of the special ballot cabins in presence of electoral commissions’ members and other individuals. They also massively infringed on the free voting principle. The citizens were forced to engage in the early voting.”

Among other abuses, BHC experts note this one: “ballot-sheets had no protection from forgery and in certain cases had been prepared by hand, so the exact number of produced bulletins remains unidentified”.