Republic

MINSK, 24 December (BelTA) – The Central Election Commission of Belarus has summed up results of the presidential election that took place on 19 December. Incumbent president Alexander Lukashenko has been re-elected by winning 79.65% of the vote. The information was voiced at a session of Belarus’ Central Election Commission for Elections and National Referendums on 24 December, BelTA has learned. Grigory Kostusev won 1.97% of the vote, Aleksei Mikhalevich 1.02%, Vladimir Nekliaev 1.78%, Yaroslav Romanchuk 1.98%, Vitaly Rymashevsky 1.09%, Andrei Sannikov 2.43%, Nikolai Statkevich 1.05%, Viktor Tereshchenko 1.19%, Dmitry Uss 0.39%. 6.47% of those, who took part in the election, voted for “none of the above”. Voter turnout amounted to 90.65%, roughly 2% down from 2006, Belarus’ CEC said. Voter turnout amounted to over 91% in Brest Oblast, over 93% in Vitebsk Oblast and Gomel Oblast, nearly 91% in Grodno Oblast and Minsk Oblast, 93.7% in Mogilev Oblast and over 84% in the city of Minsk. The CEC has declined a petition of one of the presidential candidates to invalidate results of the election because no facts or proofs of violations that may influence the overall election results have been presented. At the CEC session it was said that some violations of the election legislation had been registered but they had been minor ones. Typical violations included the presence of several people in a voting booth and incorrect electoral registers. CEC member Nadezhda Kiseleva said that many voters had failed to correct their errors when they had been told that only one person is allowed to be in a voting booth at a time. The number of people, whose names were not in electoral registers, was considerably lower than that in previous years. Many more people wanted to cast votes where they live instead of where they are registered. Summing up results of the presidential election, Secretary of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Nikolai Lozovik said that the election campaign had been generally calm and organized. In many things it had been much more liberal than the previous one thanks to amendments to election laws. “Yet several candidates repeatedly abused their right to agitate and urged citizens to take part in illegal actions. Acting together with opposition organizations, which declared themselves to be the only source of democracy, they tried to do their best to reduce the importance of what had been done to democratize the election process, aiming to convince the international community not to recognize the election,” stressed Nikolai Lozovik. With this in mind they organized civil unrest in Minsk, said the official. Nikolai Lozovik said that several human rights organizations had had an unproductive attitude by siding with several presidential candidates. “They provided observers, who had been nominated by these organizations and opposition parties, with predetermined illegal petitions and proposals that were used to bombard election commissions during the election. Using these documents in numbers, the so-called human rights activists tried to convince foreign observers that multiple violations of election laws took place. The scheme failed,” said Nikolai Lozovik. According to the source, the OSCE observation mission used its own data to classify elections as good and very good at over 94% of the polling stations it monitored. However, the mission’s final statement was influenced by street protests to a certain degree. Before that the OSCE evaluation of the election was more balanced and objective, with changes for the better taken into account. The election was monitored by 39,000 domestic observers and over 1,000 foreign ones. Most of them praised the organization of the election process in Belarus. Individual violations and drawbacks in the election organization were not systematic and did not influence the overall election results. Chairperson of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Lidia Yermoshina said that the election campaign had been hard. However, voters were pleased with the election organization. Most complaints were filed by representatives of the so-called opposition and some foreign observers. She believes that the evaluation of the presidential election by some Western politicians relies on a prejudiced opinion of a small number of citizens. Lidia Yermoshina was convinced that these citizens were not sufficiently informed about the situation in Belarus and advised them to talk to people more to learn opinions and the mood of most Belarusians.

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