Presidential election 2015 in Belarus

MINSK, 14 August (BelTA) - Vote by e-mail is possible for Belarusian citizens who live outside the country, Chairperson of the Belarus Central Election Commission (CEC) Lidia Yermoshina told BelTA.

According to Lidia Yermoshina, the rising number of polling stations abroad indicates that the number of Belarusian citizens living abroad increased significantly. However, she noted that in Russia and Poland the number of polling stations for the upcoming president elections is the same (four). "I believe that this is clearly not enough for Russia. The Belarusian citizens, who are working, for example, in the North, will not be able to participate in the elections, unfortunately. They can, of course, come to Moscow, but I doubt that they will," she said. It is for such citizens that we need to start using vote by e-mail (and I think that will happen once),” Lidia Yermoshina said.

According to Lidia Yermoshina, in voting by e-mail it is important, firstly, to identify the voter, and secondly, to preserve the secret of the ballot. “An electronic signature is becoming commonplace. So I think there will be no problems with the identification of voters. The only thing we need to consider is the secret of the ballot. If this idea is implemented, I think that the number of citizens voting abroad will increase. In the meantime, their number is not big," noted Lidia Yermoshina.

A total of 6,129 polling stations were established in Belarus for the presidential election, 49 of them abroad. The CEC has published the list of the countries and addresses of the Belarusian embassies where the polling stations will be set up: Vienna (Austria), Baku (Azerbaijan), Yerevan (Armenia), Brussels (Belgium), Sofia (Bulgaria), London (United Kingdom), Budapest (Hungary), Caracas (Venezuela), Berlin and Munich (Germany), Tel Aviv (Israel), New Delhi (India), Rome and Milan (Italy), Astana (Kazakhstan), Ottawa (Canada), Beijing and Shanghai (China), Havana (Cuba), Riga and Daugavpils (Latvia), Vilnius (Lithuania), Chisinau (Moldova), The Hague (Netherlands), Bialystok, Gdansk, Warsaw and Biala Podlaska (Poland), Abu Dhabi (U.A.E.), Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Rostov-on-Don (Russia), Belgrade (Serbia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Washington and New York (United States), Ankara and Istanbul (Turkey), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Kiev (Ukraine), Paris (France), Helsinki (Finland), Prague (Czech Republic), Bern (Switzerland), Quito (Ecuador), Tallinn (Estonia), Pretoria (South Africa), Tokyo (Japan).

The Belarus president election is scheduled for 11 October 2015.