BELARUS: Voters turn out at polling stations in low-key parliamentary elections, likely to reinforce hardline President Alexander Lukashenko, a vote boycotted by opposition parties

Record ID: 702346

  • Title: BELARUS: Voters turn out at polling stations in low-key parliamentary elections, likely to reinforce hardline President Alexander Lukashenko, a vote boycotted by opposition parties
  • Date: 24th September 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF MAN WITH CHILDREN CASTING BALLOT
  • Embargoed: 9th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belarus
  • Country: Belarus
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACYYY3ODR62UETZT7SWJXNJLAO
  • Story Text: Belarus citizens voted on Sunday (September 23) in a parliamentary election which is likely to reinforce hardline President Alexander Lukashenko's grip on the small former-Soviet country despite a boycott call from the dispirited opposition.
    The two main opposition parties urged people to go fishing and mushrooming rather than vote in what they see as a sham exercise to produce a 110-seat chamber which largely rubber-stamps Lukashenko's directives.
    Lukashenko, a populist who has run the country of 9.5 million with an iron fist since 1994, has contemptuously dismissed the boycott action and opposition leaders.
    Opposition parties, the United Civic Party and the Belarussian People's Front, said anyone voting would be casting a ballot for his leadership as a whole and would be validating the detention of political prisoners and election fraud.
    But students, armed service staff and police voting had already produced a 26 percent turnout, official figures showed, and there was no question of the boycott threatening the overall turnout threshold and the validity of Sunday's ballot.
    One pensioner named Valeria said she always cast a ballot in Belarus elections.
    "As it's said, I am an obedient citizen, and I always vote, and I do it consciously. It's impossible for me not to come here. I vote in every election. I have chosen my candidate, and the things that are changing for the better make me happy, and I hope things will become much better," Valeria said.
    Another pensioner, Anatoly, had similar reasons for voting.
    "I have been voting for as long as I have been alive because there should be elections for our life to become better, for us to trust someone. Someone will work for us and think about us, and we will listen to them," Anatoly said.
    The outcome of Sunday's elections will enable Lukashenko to present the election as a genuine democratic process. Western monitoring agencies have not judged an election in Belarus free and fair since 1995.
    The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has fielded 330 observers for the election and is expected to give its verdict on the election on Monday.
    "My general impression is that the campaign was at a very low key," the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Mission Antonio Milososki said, adding, "There is no desired balance by forming the precinct and district electoral commissions, so that each and every political actor has a confidence in the electoral system."
    Milososki, observing voters at a Minsk polling station also spoke about the opposition boycott.
    "We have noted the fact that participating in the elections or boycotting the elections became one of the issues in the campaign," Milososki said.
    Lukashenko's relations with the United States and the European Union, which were never good, nose-dived when he cracked down on street protests against his re-election in December 2010.
    Scores of his opponents - including several who stood against him - were arrested. Many now either lie low after periods in jail or have fled the country.
    Human rights bodies say the run-up to Sunday's poll - inconsequential though it is - has been marked by arrests and detention of opposition activists.
    Opposition politician and leader of the Belarus National Front party, Alexei Yankevich said.
    "Elections as a mechanism to change or at least to control the authorities doesn't work in Belarus at all. We can also say that the entire Belarussian society, no matter who comes to the polling station and who doesn't, sees this process as a formality which in no way influences the political situation in the country, and in no way influences the social and economic situation in the country. The current authorities have brought the situation to such a point when just the presidential elections are of importance for the people, because all the power is concentrated in the president's hands," Yankevich said.
    Opposition activists say many students in higher-education were told to go and vote, sometimes under threat of losing their subsidised accommodation.
    Analysts say that the election is not likely to promote any strong personality among deputies capable of competing with Lukashenko. Previous parliaments have initiated very little legislation independent of the presidency.
    Despite U.S. and EU sanctions, which prevent Lukashenko and his inner circle travelling to anywhere in the West, the small country has weathered a currency crisis which drained it of dollars and caused two big devaluations.
    This was largely thanks to Russia, which provided $4.5 billion in loans and investments in exchange for access to industrial assets such as pipelines pumping Russian gas to Europe. With the deterioration in relations with the West, Belarus has moved closer to Russia with which it has an open border and shares a common air defence network.
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