BELARUS: Belarussian opposition which boycotted parliamentary elections refuses to recognize the vote results and elected parliament

Record ID: 860073

  • Title: BELARUS: Belarussian opposition which boycotted parliamentary elections refuses to recognize the vote results and elected parliament
  • Date: 26th September 2012
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belarus
  • City:
  • Country: Belarus
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA37EDVN7CTF40Z9XYNHHFLO1DP
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  • Story Text: Belarussian opposition on Tuesday (September 25) dismissed the country's parliamentary elections which it boycotted as fictitious and declared their results invalid.
    It came the day after international monitors and the European Union dismissed the election as a sham exercise, increasing the isolation of President Alexander Lukashenko.
    Western monitoring agencies have not judged an election in the country of 9.5 million free and fair since 1995.
    The two main opposition parties, United Civic Party and the Belarussian People's Front, had called on people to go mushrooming or fishing rather than vote, in protest against the detention of political prisoners and election fraud.
    The turnout was officially put at 74 percent. The leader of United Civic Party said the figure was not true.
    "We have to state that more than a half of Belarussian voters did not take part in voting," Anatoly Lebedko said.
    As under the Belarussian law the turnout at the elections should be at least 50 percent for them to be declared valid, Lebedko said the election results cannot be recognized.
    "The so-called elections did not take place, so they can't have any legal consequences for Belarus and for its citizens. We do not have a parliament, we do not have elected members of parliament, we just have one big black hole," Lebedko said.
    Lukashenko denounced the boycott call on Sunday (September 23), calling the opposition "cowards who have nothing to say to the people".
    A report of preliminary findings published by the OSCE, which fielded 330 observers, said many prominent politicians who might have played a part in the election "remained in prison or were not eligible to register because of their criminal record".
    "The authorities have learnt to make - and I mean, make - election results, even without any participation of voters at polling stations. The boycott was successful in all big cities of the Republic of Belarus," chairman of Belarussian Christian Democracy Party Vitaly Rymashevksy told Reuters.
    "What we have is an illusion and a sense that we have (elections) similarly like our closest neighbours have - Lithuania, Poland, or even Ukraine. But it's a completely different situation here. If over there they elect members of parliament or the president, we have only a procedure of appointing them. But this is a dead end. The only way out is fair and free elections. If we don't have them, I would vote to stop fictitious elections for fictitious parliament," Anatoly Lebedko added.
    Earlier on Tuesday, Russia praised the Belarussian parliamentary elections, saying that the vote was free and open and charging that criticism from international observers was politically biased.
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