The release of the last political prisoners and the insurance given by the Belarusian authorities of their intention to hold free and democratic elections had raised hopes that the elections would comply with international standards. However, the hopes of the Belarusian citizens and of the international community did not materialise.
The Elections Committees included very few members of the opposition parties and were kept under the full control of the local executive authorities. The percentage of unregistered candidates was unreasonably high. The practices of early voting and of vote counting attract particular criticism. National and international observers have reported cases when voters had to vote in advance; candidates of the opposition and members of their teams experienced pressure from the authorities. Fake increase manipulation of the electoral lists, blatant cases of ballot box stuffing in the number of voters were reported. It is worth noting that the vote count itself remained for the most part completely closed to independent observation.
As a result of the election observations, both the national independent observers from « Human Rights Defenders for free elections » campaign, and the ODIHR / OSCE mission noted that although some minor improvements had taken place in the elections process, as a whole the elections are neither fair nor transparent. " The complete absence of members of the opposition in the newly elected parliament is probably the most blatant demonstration of the true nature of this election campaign ", said Aliaksandr Bialiatski, FIDH Vice-president. " It shows the lack of willingness of the Belarus authorities to open up to democracy ".
Our organisations consider that the Parliamentary elections in Belarus did not comply with international and regional human rights standards, in particular the OSCE principles on the holding of elections. The mass violations of the rights of the electorate and the results of the elections contribute to a general mistrust in the institutions.