MINSK: International election monitors gave a thumbs-down yesterday to a parliamentary election in Belarus, saying it was neither free nor fair, in a judgment that increased the isolation of President Alexander Lukashenko.
After election officials listed 109 winning candidates for parliament, all from pro-establishment parties, monitors of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said many opposition politicians had been blocked from taking part in Sunday’s poll and unable to run campaigns.
“This election was not competitive from the start,” Matteo Mecacci, a OSCE special coordinator, said in the statement. “A free election depends on people being free to speak, organise and run for office, and we didn’t see that in this campaign.”
The token parliament made up of loyalist deputies will reinforce the authoritarian Lukashenko, who has run the ex-Soviet state since 1994. But the OSCE judgment was also certain to increase his international isolation and lock in place his poor ties with the West.
In a quick reaction, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “It is very clear that President Lukashenko, instead of accepting the partnership with Europe that has been offered, continues on a course of repression and this is a tragedy for his country, for the citizens of Belarus.”
Lukashenko and his inner circle of officials are under travel and other sanctions from the United States and the European Union because of his heavy-handed rule.
His relations with the West nosedived when he cracked down on street protests against his re-election in December 2010. Scores of his opponents were arrested. Many now either lie low after periods in jail or have fled the country.
Western monitoring agencies have not judged an election in the country of 9.5 million free and fair since 1995.
Earlier, Belarussian election officials made clear that none of the 109 newly-elected deputies represented even those moderate opposition parties which had fielded candidates.
“It seems that candidates from the opposition parties do not enjoy the trust of their electorate,” Nikolai Lazovik, a senior commission official, told a news conference.
The two main opposition parties, United Civic Party and the Belarussian People’s Front, had called on people to go mushrooming or fishing rather than vote, in protest at the detention of political prisoners and election fraud.
Human rights bodies say the run-up to Sunday’s poll was marked by arrests and detention of opposition activists.
Lukashenko, a populist described by the US administration of George W Bush as the last dictator of Europe, denounced the boycott call on Sunday, calling the opposition “cowards who have nothing to say to the people”.
REUTERS
