“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its final monitoring report on the 2010 presidential election in Belarus. The report gives the campaign's overall conclusions on the election, provides comprehensive analysis of the voting and counting stages and includes recommendations on how the election process could be brought in line with international standards.
Minsk, 10:00 am, 18 December, – “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its preliminary monitoring report on observation of the fourth day of early voting (17 December). The observation is being conducted by 600 short-term and 80 long-term observers at 300 polling stations throughout Belarus.
Minsk, 10:00 am, 16 December, – “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its preliminary monitoring report on observation of the third day of early voting (16 December). The observation is being conducted by 600 short-term and 80 long-term observers at 300 polling stations throughout Belarus.
10:00 am, 16 December, Minsk – “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its preliminary monitoring report on observation of the second day of early voting (15 December). The observation is being conducted by 600 short-term and 80 long-term observers at 300 polling stations throughout Belarus.
10:00, 15 December, Minsk – “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its preliminary monitoring report on observation of the first day of early voting (14 December). The observation is being carried out by 600 short-term and 80 long-term observers at 300 polling stations throughout Belarus.
The novelties and positive changes, however, did little to decrease the inequality in campaign conditions between the incumbent president and other candidates. As in 2006, Alyaksandr Lukashenka benefitted from the following: • unlimited opportunities for Lukashenka to avail of the state mass media – compared to 2 hours of TV and radio appearances and an opportunity to print 5 pages of text in the main newspapers guaranteed to the other candidates; • targeted criticism of the other candidates in the state mass media – compared to an exclusively complimentary coverage of the incumbent president’s personality and his election programme.
The CEC refused to allow observers to be present at the polling stations overnight during the early voting period, and once again dismissed the proposal to describe the process of vote count in detail, i.e. ignored those elements of voting process which are most vulnerable to potential falsifications.
In general, registration of candidates took place without significant restrictions of the right of candidates to be elected. At the same time, the non-transparent character of signature verification process and check of documents presented by nominees for registration does not exclude chances for manipulation by election commissions and gives grounds to view the results of registration as politically not legally motivated.
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