Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections

An interdepartmental working group on the OSCE ODIHR recommendations made following the October 2015 presidential election has developed a series of proposal on measures to improve the electoral process. This was reported by the head of the Central Election Commission, Lidziya Yarmoshyna.

According to her, “each agency has developed its proposals taking into account their views on the legislation and taking into account the proposals that were put forward not only by the OSCE ODIHR, but also by the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. These proposals for the democratization of the electoral process will be formulated by the Central Commission and submitted to the head of state” said the CEC head.

Ms. Yarmoshyna said that there were “five or six proposals”, and they “will have to be worked on now, before the parliamentary elections”, and will be implemented through CEC regulations. First of all, she said, these proposals relate to improving vote counting procedures, consideration of electoral disputes and the formation of election commissions.

In addition, some of the recommendations deal with changes to the electoral laws, which the CEC and the expert group will continue looking into after the parliamentary elections.

The interdepartmental expert group was set up on February 12 after an order from President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. It involved representatives of the CEC, Law and Legal Research Center, Council of the Republic, the House of Representatives, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Information.

During the group’s work, representatives of the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" twice petitioned the CEC head, first offering assistance to facilitate the work on the improvement of the electoral process, and then sending their detailed studies for the implementation of the OSCE ODIHR recommendations, which can increase the level of openness and transparency in the upcoming parliamentary elections.