Recommendations to make 2020 Presidential election safer and fairer during pandemic
Image source: telegrafi.com Members of the non-partisan election observation campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” sent to the Central Election Commission, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court a set of key proposals on this year’s presidential election scheduled for late August. The human rights activists note that their goal is assessing […]
Analytical report of the Parliamentary elections
FINDINGS The elections to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the seventh convocation were announced by Presidential Decree No. 294 of August 5, 2019 and took place on November 17, 2019. In accordance with the current legislation, the parliamentary elections and the presidential elections were to be held in 2020, with […]
Full analytical report
According to the “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, these elections do not meet international standards of democratic and free elections for a number of reasons: lack of equal access to state media for all candidates, lack of impartial election commissions, use of administrative resource in favor of pro-government candidates, numerous cases of coercion of […]
Decline of political race and total fraud
The parliamentary elections were once again marred by gross violations of both Belarusian legislation and international standards, representatives of “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, a nation-wide election observation coalition, said at a press conference in Minsk. Aleh Hulak (Belarusian Helsinki Committee) and Uladzimir Labkovich (Human Rights Center “Viasna”) say each electoral phase (formation of election commissions, registration of […]
Report on early voting
The official turnout for early voting is reported at 35.77%, which is the record high for the parliamentary elections since 2008. Official turnout figures were much greater than those reported by the observers. Participation in early voting was encouraged by the authorities. Administrations of government-owned enterprises and institutions, as well as universities strongly advised voters […]
Early Voting: Official turnout figures exaggerated and cases of coercion of participants to vote
SUMMARY – the official turnout for early voting is reported at 35.77%, which is the record high for the parliamentary elections since 2008; – observation of early voting was conducted by 160 observers of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” at more than 94 polling stations throughout the country; – as before, participation […]
Report on election campaigning
In general, local executive committees created favorable conditions for election campaigning and the number of places for holding public events increased in comparison with the elections of 2016. However, election campaigning was low key and administrative resources were widely used to promote the pro-government candidates, while non-affiliated and opposition candidates reported that their political campaigns […]
Interim Reports – Candidates’ registration revoked and banned from public broadcasts
There are continued cases in the run up to the Parliamentary elections of candidates’ registrations being revoked over alleged violations of Art. 47 and ongoing cases of bans on broadcasting the campaign speeches of opposition candidates; the DECs and the public media have demonstrated an extremely loose treatment of restrictions on campaigning activities, as established […]
Censorship and penalties: Parliamentary elections worse than ever
This year’s parliamentary elections have already been marred by multiple instances of arbitrary interpretation of electoral laws, Uladzimir Labkovich, coordinator of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, said in a comment on the case of candidate Uladzimir Zahryshau running in Babrujsk. The candidate was among a few other people across Belarus who were penalized by the […]
Interim Reports – Censorship and penalties against candidates
Opposition candidates have been censored during their campaigning and have had their registrations revoked for criticising authorities, reports the election observation campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. Many appeals of candidates whose registration was refused have yet to be considered despite the period for this having already passed and only one appeal was successful. […]