Amendments to Electoral Code being prepared in secret

The Belarusian society doesn’t know what amendments the authorities are preparing for the Electoral Code.

The Belarusian authorities announced intention to amend the Electoral Code. The Center of Law Making and Juridical Research is preparing appropriate proposals. As head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Lidziya Yarmoshyna has recently said, the document would be considered in autumn at a session of the “house of representatives”.

Yarmoshyna noted that after the “parliamentary elections” 2008 the OSCE and Belarus agreed on a joint estimation of the Belarusian electoral legislation and working out amendments. She added that the Belarusian side is interested in the evaluation of the OSCE experts, in order for the proposals “not to attract criticism from the start” by this organisation. “Why should we change the law in a way that during the next election campaign experts or OSCE observers would come and criticize it again?”

However she reminded that to change the law “the opinion of the OSCE is not needed”.

A commission headed by head of Lukashenka’s Administration Valery Mitskevich, was formed at he begging of the year. It tried to save the Belarusian electoral legislation from criticism of European institutions.

It is unknown what changes will be made in the electoral legislation. The responsible officials have made a secret of it and say that not all subjects interested have made their proposals to the draft. Political parties seem to be among the most interested subjects in sis issue. But they were not invited to discuss proposals.

“These changes are being worked out in secret,” lawyer Syarhei Alfer, a member of the United Civil Party, told “Narodnaya Volya” newspaper. “At least, representatives of opposition political parties don’t know what amendments are planned. The trouble is that the authors from the very beginning stood against allowing access to the discussion for civil society representatives. I don’t believe there will be real changes, nit just cosmetic. The acting Belarusian authorities are not ready for an open political competition. A known fact, the OSCE sent the Belarusian authorities a list of seven items covering changes in the electoral legislation. They include equal conditions for candidates, access to electoral commission for oppositionists, open vote count... I can’t say if the amendments cover this.

I have hopes only for the OSCE that declared transparency in discussion of the amendments made by the Belarusian authorities. The trouble is that as far as I know, official Minsk hasn’t presented the OSCE anything concrete.

I don’t believe in real changes in out electoral legislation that could make it more democratic.”

We remind that the ODIHR OSCE in its report on the “parliamentary elections” in Belarus in autumn 2008 stated that the elections “didn’t meet the OSCE standards”.

In particular, the ODIHR OSCE representatives believe the electoral code of Belarus does not give a possibility for a true political competition and equal treatment of candidates by the authorities. Experts note the Electoral Code of Belarus “does not provide any clear mechanism for securely keeping the ballot boxes after the start of early voting, nor does it provide specific regulations for enhancing the integrity of the ballot”.

The mission experts think this creates possibilities for falsifications.

All elections held in Belarus under the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, were recognized as not free and not fair by the world community. The head of the CEC Lidziya Yarmoshyna was banned entry to the EU countries and the United States for rigging election results.