Belarus parliament elections

Lidia Yermoshina recalled that the President's State of the Nation Address compared the upcoming political campaign to an exam for political culture. “But what is political culture? This is the respect for someone else's point of view,” the CEC head said. According to Lidia Yermoshina, in Belarus the political activity in Parliament will be intensified thanks to different points of view. “The intensification of political activity implies the existence of a discussion. People discussing the point of view, which may differ, should arrive at the only correct solution that will be good for society,” she believes.

Speaking of the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations, which will be taken into consideration in the upcoming parliamentary campaign, Lidia Yermoshina noted that the main of them was about the enhanciment of the transparency of vote count so that observers could see how this process happens. “The principle itself will be taken into account,” she said. In addition, the process of forming election commissions will be made more transparent as well. According to the OSCE, the procedure for inclusion these or those members to election commissions appears to be insufficiently transparent. The reasons why local authorities okay one applicant to the commission and refuse to include some other citizens are not clear enough. Quite often, during the meetings of the executive committees and local councils in charge of the formation of election commissions, there were no answers to these questions. Meanwhile, according to her, this issue will be resolved, most likely be the time of future elections. At least, the Central Election Commission will advise local authorities to conduct this procedure as transparent and open as possible so that those present at a meeting should understand the reasons behind this or that decision,” the election chief said.

In the future (after the parliamentary elections) Belarus will partially fulfill the OSCE recommendation to include representatives of all candidates to the Parliament to election commissions. According to Lidia Yermoshina, this recommendation cannot be implemented fully given the current electoral legislation: precinct election commissions are formed 45 days before the election, while the candidates are registered 30 days ahead of the election. “At the time precinct commissions are registered, there are no candidates to the Parliament yet. We therefore propose to reconsider the institute of a election commission member with the right of consultative vote for all candidates: after being registered in the district commission any candidate should be able to send his/her representative to participate in the meetings of the commission where he has been registered to protect his/her interests both during the election and after the election if the candidate loses,” she said.

The parliamentary election to the House of Representatives will be held in Belarus on 11 September 2016.