Lukashenka used every trick in his outdated playbook to survive’
Image source: Facebook Franak Viacorka The presidential election in Belarus fell well short of international standards for transparent, free and fair elections, and saw a clear attempt by the authorities to manipulate the outcome, according to independent election monitoring organisations. In a post-election statement (below), the election monitors – MEMO 98, the EAST Research […]
Coordinated Covert Operation of Alt-Info on Facebook
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) has been continuously monitoring social media sites and identified 34 pages on Facebook that display coordinated inauthentic behavior and are associated with the organization Alt-Info that spreads divisive narratives. Alt-Info is a self-proclaimed source of alternative information but in reality it is engaged in anti-liberal, anti-immigration, […]
Weekly report: election campaigning
Observation of the presidential election is carried out by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center “Viasna” in the framework of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. SUMMARY the phase of election campaigning differed significantly from the previous elections by the wide activity of the protest electorate both in Minsk and […]
Weekly report: early voting
Observation of the presidential election is carried out by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center “Viasna” in the framework of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. SUMMARY the restrictions imposed by the CEC on the number of observers at polling stations during early voting made this electoral phase completely non-transparent […]
Belarus Election Alert #5
Photo: Sergei Gapon / AFP. Belarus’ riot police officers watch opposition supporters in Minsk Early voting ended on August 8, 2020. The Central Election Commission (CEC)’s imposition of deprived of accreditation. Most of the observers admitted to the polling stations represent pro-government NGOs, as stated in the appealed to the Belarusian authorities to respect […]
Evaluation and recommendations on electoral reform ahead of parliamentary elections
Ahead of 2020 parliamentary elections election reform was one of the important issues discussed in parallel with the change of electoral system. The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) was actively involved in the working group on election reform and presented its joint recommendations with TI-Georgia. As a result of almost one-year long […]
Political advertising on social media – who invests the most and what is in these ads?
The rhetoric of political content remains the same, criticizing opponents and praising their own initiatives, especially on the eve of elections. Politicians have actively used promotional services from Facebook in July. Mykola Tyshchenko, Volodymyr Hroisman, Petro Poroshenko, as well as the European Solidarity, Servant of the People, and Party of Sharii invested in political advertising […]
An analog campaign in a digital age: Lukashenka falters in the face of social media
Image source: Belta.by President Lukashenko has tried to play down the upcoming election as an unnecessary distraction from business as usual, but an active social media movement has shown the public is no longer prepared to go along with an alternate reality, according to a new report analysing media and social media in the build-up […]
Statement on recently adopted changes to electoral legislation
Source: www.ukrinform.net Statement by Civil Network OPORA: On July, 16, 2020, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved in the second reading the draft law No 3485 on changes to electoral law. The decision that implies amendments to the Electoral Code, the Criminal Code and the Code on Administrative Offense, the laws on the CEC and the […]
“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” demand transparency in voting and vote count
Image source: spring96.org On July 22, the Central Election Commission adopted a resolution amending Resolution No. 15 of May 8, 2020 “On the approval of the Regulations on the procedure for delegating and the activities of observers in the preparation and conduct of the 2020 presidential election in the Republic of Belarus”. The amendments introduced restrictions on […]