Central Election Commission announced that on the presidential elections the President of Belarus Aliaksandr Lukashenka got 83.49% of votes. At the same time, 6.4% voted against all candidates. The activist of the civil campaign “Tell the Truth” Tatsiana Karatkevich got 4.42% of the votes, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party Siarhej Hajdukevich got 3.32% and the Supreme Ataman of “Belarusian Cossacks” Mikalaj Ulakhovich got 1.67%. The turnout in the elections was 87.2%.

A new record was established in these elections — the number of voters who voted early from 6 to 10 October. 36.05% of the population voted before the day of the official ballot. According to the observers of “Belarusian Helsinki Committee” and the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, this is a serious violation of the Electoral Code of Belarus. 

“At the time of observation for early voting within the framework of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” the observers noted numerous facts of coercion of citizens to participate in early voting by the administration of enterprises and higher education institutions” – reads the organization report. At the same time human rights activists point out that the cases of turnout overstating at some polling stations we reported as well.

The deputy head of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna” Valiantsin Stefanovich commented on the election results:

“The election process did not meet a number of key international standards for democratic and free elections. This was due to the lack of equal access to the media for all candidates, the lack of impartiality of election commissions, use of administrative resources in favour of the incumbent President, numerous facts of coercion of voters to participate in early voting, the absence of access to some election procedures for observers”.

According to the reports of observers from 326 polling stations covered by the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, 92.3% observers noted that the counting process was not open and transparent to all members of election commissions and observers. 76.9% of observers reported that they could not observe the vote count.

OSCE observers of democratic standards and Human Rights in their report pointed to certain improvements and “friendly attitude” to the mission. The release of six political prisoners, including former presidential candidate Mikalaj Statkevich in August is given as a positive example. But at the same time, according to the observers, the vote count and summing up voting procedure undermined the honesty of elections: “The vote count was assessed negatively at 30% of polling stations observed, which indicates significant problems. The process of summing up the results of voting was assessed as negative and lacking transparency at 25% of the polling stations where there were observers”, — OSCE ODIHR observers reported.

Observation Mission of the Commonwealth of Independent States gave the election in Belarus positive assessment, calling them “transparent, open and competitive”. During the press conference in Minsk, the head of mission Sergei Lebedev said: “The presidential elections were held in accordance with the Constitution and the Electoral Code of Belarus. The right of citizens to freedom of expression was ensured”. He also noted that many observers believe that the electoral legislation of Belarus “can be an example for other countries”.  Significant violations were not reported by the CIS mission.

Belarusian Association of Journalists closely followed the coverage of the presidential race in the media. The head of the Association Andrej Bastunets believes that the candidates had initially had unequal opportunities for election campaigning.

“Though the state-owned media featured some information about the candidates, it was no more than a summary. There was no full coverage of the programs of candidates and their positions. Aliaksandr Lukashenka in his turn was always in the centre of attention. And he was withdrawn from the competition and presented not as a candidate but as a person engaged in the business for 20 years. He refused from presenting campaign speeches and participating in debates. Non-state national media provided more balanced coverage of the elections and the activities of all the candidates. But the regional media in some periods simply abandoned the topic of the elections just in order to avoid state sanctions”.

At the same time Andrei Bastunets stressed: “We can claim that the candidates had not been provided with a platform for a full-fledged electoral agitation campaign”.

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