Geert Ahrens: “Elections – is not a single day process”.

The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has opened a mission to observe the presidential elections in Belarus.

On this occasion, the head of the mission, a German diplomat Geert Ahrens, held a press conference, “Radio Svaboda” reported.”

Ambassador Geert Ahrens became the head of the OSCE observer mission at the Belarusian elections for the third time. Previously, he worked during the presidential elections of 2006 and the elections to the House of Representatives in 2008. OSCE did not recognize either of the two campaigns free or fair.

Ambassador Ahrens held his first meeting with the head of the CEC Lidziya Yarmoshyna within the frameworks of his new mission in Belarus. In particular, at the meeting they agreed on the weekly meetings of representatives of the OSCE and the CEC, said Geert Ahrens.

“At this meeting, I noted that we will pay a particular attention to how changes in the Belarusian electoral legislation will be implemented in practice. In the past there were two main points where we saw the problem. One of them - an immediate opportunity to monitor the counting of votes, the second - early voting. I expressed my hope that there will be progress in the two issues”- the head of the mission said.

Ahrens did not make his personal assessments of changes in the electoral legislation of Belarus, and alluded to the overall assessment of the ODIHR of the OSCE and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. The assessment was published in June. According to experts of these structures, even after the amendments adopted in the Electoral Code the structure of the Belarusian electoral base in this sphere can not be the basis for holding free democratic elections.

According to Ahrens, his nearest plans are - meetings with candidates, representatives of the authorities, media and NGOs.

Geert Ahrens has refrained from the evaluation of how the Belarusian electoral commissions were formed and how the previous period of the campaign, before his arrival in Minsk, passed.

“Of course, we know that elections - is not a single day process. All received the information concerning preparations for the elections from Belarus. But we usually rely on our own observations. Therefore we will form our own observations on this matter. Most likely, we will publish two interim reports. I think that the first one will deal with the formation of election commissions”, - Ahrens underlined.

14 experts of the OSCE mission are already working in Minsk, more than 40 long-term observers are arriving on Wednesday. They will represent 18 countries of the OSCE. The prevailing part of the long-term observers speaks Russian. They will go to all regions of Belarus. About 400 short-term observers of OSCE mission will arrive on the eve of the voting.

A preliminary report of the mission concerning the correspondence of the Belarusian elections to international standards and obligations of Belarus within the OSCE frameworks will be published immediately after the voting day, December, 20, the complete one – in eight weeks. Ahrens also reported that the backbone of observers of the OSCE mission will stay in Belarus for about a week after the polling day.