Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections

On September 11, the parliamentary elections will culminate in Election Day, which, in turn, will end with vote counting, a procedure of extreme secrecy, according to election officials. Meanwhile, it is the vote count that has traditionally triggered fierce criticism of both domestic and international observers, not to speak of opposition candidates running for Parliament. The observers’ recommendations are that the vote counting procedure needs more transparency.

The Belarusian Central Election Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have not yet replied to a request asking for the invitation of an ENEMO mission to observe the parliamentary elections scheduled for September 11, according to ENEMO Secretariat.

There were cases of abusing administrative resources in favor of pro-government candidates, as well as pressure on members of opposition candidates’ nomination groups.

The Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections civil campaign announces a press conference to be held at 12:00, August 15 in the office of the HRC "Viasna" at the address: 8-26 vulitsa Miarzhynskaha.

On August 8, the office of the Human Rights Center "Viasna" hosted a meeting of the OSCE ODIHR election observation mission with representatives of the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections domestic observation campaign.

As in earlier elections, observers of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” were, in most cases, denied the opportunity to observe the verification of signatures submitted in support of nominations.

The absence of legislatively fixed criteria for candidates to election commissions still results in a highly partial approach to the personal composition of these commissions.

The process of collecting signatures is once again accompanied by abuse of administrative resources, but not as extensively as in earlier elections.

The current election campaign is no exception: the election commissions are likely to have only loyal members. Lawyer Pavel Sapelka has commented on the recent response by the CEC head to his proposal to abandon such criteria ‘political qualities’ in the selection of members of the PECs.

The process of registration of nomination groups (initiative groups) of candidates for the House of Representatives was more democratic than that during the previous election campaign.

The term of ‘political qualities’, which has no explanation in the electoral law, but remains an important criterion for the selection of candidates to the election commissions, should be removed from the CEC’s Decision No. 18, says Pavel Sapelka, analyst of the campaign Human Rights Defenders For Free Elections.

Lack of clear selection criteria results in the selective approach in the formation of election commissions.

There will be no transparent counting of votes during this year’s parliamentary elections, said Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the Central Election Commission. The statement reflects the authorities’ current approach to the administration of elections, says Uladzimir Labkovich of the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections campaign.

The campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" is a non-partisan initiative and does not intend to support political parties and politicians. The entire election process is assessed solely on the basis of the principles of free, democratic and transparent elections, which can enable the people of Belarus to fully exercise their constitutional right to participate in the government of the country.

The Belarusian authorities only took into account a few recommendations made by the OSCE ODIHR and the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" following the observation of the previous campaign.