Belarus parliament elections

MINSK, 12 September (BelTA) – There are improvements in the vote count procedure during elections in Belarus. The statement was made by Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and special coordinator of the OSCE observer mission during the parliamentary elections in Belarus Kent Harstedt on 12 September, BelTA has learned.

“We certainly have yet to analyze all the reports but we see that there are improvements in the vote count procedure,” said Kent Harstedt.

The OSCE representative reminded that Belarus’ Central Election Commission (CEC) had prepared guidelines on how the vote count procedure should be arranged so that observers could monitor the process. “The instructions are indeed rather clearly worded. We’ve seen them,” added the OSCE representative.

Yet Kent Harstedt noted that while everything was perfectly organized at some polling stations, some other polling stations experienced difficulties. It may have happened because individual observers failed to properly study the instructions or members of some election commissions were insufficiently trained.