European Union

As acting local presidency of the EU in Minsk, the British Embassy is issuing the following Presidency statement

Diplomats from the embassies of several EU member states resident and accredited in Minsk took an active part in observing the local elections on 25 April. The EU is grateful for the invitation of the authorities. The elections were the first to be held under the new electoral law which came into force in January 2010. The new law takes into account a number of recommendations made by the OSCE following the 2008 Parliamentary elections. It must be emphasised that EU diplomats acted as observers, and did not constitute a full-scale monitoring mission. In all, EU observers visited more than 140 of polling stations in the capital and in the regions. Some of our observers were allowed access to the vote count.

The new electoral law has the welcome intention of increasing the transparency of the voting process and encouraging a broader range of population to be involved in electoral procedures.

However, based on this observation, it is clear that there are several vulnerabilities in the implementation of the electoral law which should be addressed in further dialogue with the OSCE. One of these is early voting on which there are a number of issues of concern. There were inconsistencies in accessing information about the separate results relating to the early vote, the mobile vote, and the main vote. When such information was made available, in highlighted, in some cases, sharp discrepancies between the early voting, which took place from 20-24 April, and the voting which took place on the actual election day, 25 April.

Back to