Gert Arens: State media give too much attention to Lukashenka (Updated)

The OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission prepared the first interim report on the election campaign in Belarus.

The first intermediate report of the long-term ODIHR OSCE Observation Mission states that despite the amendments adopted to the Electoral Code of Belarus, there is still “a number of serious problems” in the legislation. The text of the document is published on the website of the organization, BelaPAN reports.

Among such problems the experts name “the excessive role of the president in appointing the members of the Central Election Commission; insufficient transparency of the procedure of nomination and appointment of district and polling stations commission members; absence of detailed procedure of ballots calculation; lack of clear description of observers’ rights; lack of the requirement to proclaim immediately preliminary and final results of the vote counting.”

As it is stated in the report, on November, 5 the CEC adopted the decree, permitting political parties and non-governmental organizations to send observers to polling stations commissions. “Another decree presupposes that observers are to be provided “real possibility to monitor the process of vote counting”, but detailed instructions concerning the implementation of the decree are still to be worked out by the CEC,” the document says.

Gert Arens, the mission head, told Euroradio about the campaign monitoring and complaints of the observers.

– How many OSCE observers are working in Belarus now? What do they do?

– 14 long-term observers from 13 OSCE countries are working in Minsk now. 20 teams consisting of 2 persons are working in regions. They monitor the press, hold many meetings.

– How is the press being monitored?

– We monitor the most significant media. We turn attention to the amount of information regarding every candidate and to the quality of covering: positive and negative remarks, and so on.

On the one hand, the candidates feel free to express their opinions in their speeches. For instance, Mr Statkevich criticized the government and the president rather harshly.

On the other hand, the state media provide wide coverage of the president’s activity and offer negative materials about the alternative candidates. Today is the last day when the alternative candidates make speeches on TV, then the Belarusian National Congress will be covered giving an opportunity of promoting the incumbent president.

– You hold a lot of meeting including ones of officials. What questions do you raise?

– Two crucial moments I always talk about are early voting and vote counting. As to the first issue, there were amendments, but we’ll see how this will influence the practice.

As to the vote count procedure, no amendments were made, but the CEC released a resolution saying observers must have access to vote counting. But I have great doubts this will be possible. I keep on repeating at all my meetings: if we again have hundreds of reports evaluating the vote count procedure as ‘bad’ or ‘vary bad’, our statement on the election won’t be positive.