Elections-2015: Mere outer progress in election process without any hint of systemic changes

Next day after the presidential elections in Minsk immediately three reports about the observation over the election campaign and on the voting day were presented.

The "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign that is carried out by activists of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center "Viasna" has to state that the Belarusan elections didn’t comply with a number of key international standards of organizing democratic and free elections.

“We are a non-party independent observation; we didn’t support any candidates during these elections – our task was to evaluate the election process from the point of view of its compliance with the international standards of organizing free and democratic elections and the national legislation”, - emphasized Valiantsin Stefanovich, the coordinator of the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign, deputy chairman of the Human Rights Center "Viasna" at the press conference given in Minsk on October 12.

According to him, more than 50 long-term observers of the campaign monitored the elections since their beginning; whereas during early voting and election day, monitoring was conducted by 450 short-term observers at 400 polling stations throughout the country.

‘The current campaign reminded me of the 2010 elections apart from the more favourable background we had in 2010. The campaign 2015 started when political prisoners still were in prisons; a wave of persecutions haunted journalists-freelancers, who cooperate with the foreign media. But starting from August the authorities were demonstrating the so-called “soft practices”. During certain stages of the campaign the authorities tried to demonstrate more or less liberal approaches; however, we didn’t see systemic changes in the legislation”, - said Valiantsin Stefanovich when presenting a preliminary report on the results of the observation.

Election commissions

The order of formation of the Central Election Committee (CEC) and its composition, as well as numerous manifestations of loyalty to the incumbent president on the part of its chairperson and members suggest that an election committee is not an independent body.

Representatives of political parties constituted a small part of the nominees for the territorial election commissions (TECs), 9.2%.

One-third of candidacies to the TECs were nominated by representatives of five pro-governmental public associations: “Belaja Rus, Belarusian Republican Youth Union, Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, Belarusian Union of Women and Belarusian Public Association of Veterans.

The CEC formed 153 territorial election commissions with 1,916 members. 10 out of 63 representatives of opposition parties, were included in them, which is 0.5% of the total membership in the TECs. The “inclusiveness” of members of opposition political parties is 15.8%, of pro-governmental political parties – 70%, of the public associations – as high as 87.5%.

Representatives of opposition parties constituted only 0.046% of the total number of precinct election committees (PEC) members (in 2010 it was 0.25%) in less than 0.5% (in 2010 - 3%) of PECs.

Thus, the formation of TECs and PECs had almost no differences from a similar process during previous presidential, parliamentary and local elections.

Nomination and registration of candidates

The stage of the nomination and registration of presidential candidates includes the determination of places prohibited for pickets held for collecting signatures in support of the nomination of candidates; registration of initiative groups; collecting signatures of voters, verification of signatures in the signature sheets; registration of candidates for President of the Republic of Belarus.

Documents for the state registration were filed by 15 initiative groups of citizens established for nomination of presidential candidates. CEC registered eight initiative groups. The rulings of the local executive bodies as to the places where it was prohibited to hold pickets for collecting signatures in support of the nomination of candidates did not significantly limit the activities of the initiative groups in public places, but many of the imposed prohibitions were not caused by the requirements of security and public order.

The authorities did not put significant restrictions on the collection of signatures, but the role of the executive vertical of power and the administration of public enterprises in the electoral process was still very large. The collection of signatures for nomination of A. Lukashenka as a presidential candidate was accompanied by the active use of administrative resources: it was conducted during business hours on the territory of enterprises and institutions, often with the direct involvement of the administration of enterprises and institutions.

Absolute non-transparent procedures for verification of signatures collected for nomination of presidential candidates cause mistrust in the results of verification.

Pre-electoral campaigning

Pre-electoral campaigning didn’t become a significant social and political campaign for the Belarusan society; it went unnoticed for the voters.

The main actors of the electoral process were the incumbent president and the Central Election Commission. A. Lukashenka was beyond competition in the allotted airtime and newspaper space. The campaign activities of T. Karatkevich were quite notable, while the campaigns of M. Ulahovich and S. Haidukevich went almost unnoticed.

Campaign events with the participation of the proxies of candidate Lukashenka were actively organized: meetings in labor collectives, visits to enterprises, educational institutions, etc. The heads of central and local authorities, enterprises and institutions, always attended these meetings. The main purpose of these events was to urge the country's citizens to support the country's political course and take part in the elections. State-run media widely covered the actions of pro-government public organizations, who expressed their support for the incumbent President.

Early voting

According to the CEC, 36.05% electors voted during the five days of early voting, which is the highest percent compared to the previous presidential elections of 2001, 2006, 2010. Given that the turnout for the elections was 86.75%, early voting was attended by 41.5% of those who voted.

During the early voting the observers of the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign registered numerous cases of coercion of voters to participate in early voting by the administrations of public enterprises, universities and hostels. It repeated the negative practices of previous election campaigns.

Observers of the campaign registered facts of overstatement of the turnout at many polling station, which amounted to 6.2% at 114 polling stations at which the observation was conducted (in 2010 - 2.8%). At some polling stations the discrepancy between the observers' calculations and the PECs' numbers reached 50%.

In this regard, recommendations re the changes of the early voting procedures remain topical.

Voting at places of residence of voters

The existing procedures of the voting at the place of residence allow for various kinds of manipulations at any scale. Observers cannot establish whether a voter has really applied for voting at home, as according to the law requests for home voting can be made both orally and in writing. Observers aren't always able to observe this kind of voting, including due to refusals of PEC members to provide them with such an opportunity.

During the observation of home voting there were recorded cases when voters had not requested the organization of such voting and stated it to the PEC members who came to them with the ballot box. Sometimes the number of the voters who voted in the place of their residence didn't match the number of the ballots that were allegedly used for it.

Voting at polling stations and vote counting

The details of counting of ballots by the PECs are not described in the legislation. This circumstance is one of the main problems of Belarusian electoral legislation. There is no clear procedure for the counting of votes, during which the vote at each ballot would be announced and the ballot would be demonstrated to all present PEC members and observers.

The vote counting at the polling stations has largely repeated the negative practice of non-transparent counting of ballots. More than half of the observers were put in inconvenient for observation circumstances, 76.9% were unable to see the content of the ballots. Only 12.2% of complaints submitted by the observers were considered at PECs.

The results of the “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign

Presidential elections started in 2015 in an environment that was extremely unfavorable to the holding of free and democratic elections: political prisoners were still held in penitentiary institutions, systemic harassment of independent journalists persisted.

A positive tendency became visible after the release of political prisoners in August 2015: there were more opportunities for exercising civil and political rights during the electoral campaign, the authorities created no obstacles to the collection of signatures for nomination of presidential candidates and campaign events.

The Belarusian authorities did not use repression and arrests during mass events that were held by a part of the opposition outside the electoral legislation. However, even the administrative punishment of the organizers of such events in the form of heavy fines violates the right to peaceful assembly, guaranteed by international instruments.

Nevertheless, the election process did not meet a number of key international standards for democratic and free elections. This was due to the lack of equal access to the media for all candidates, the lack of impartiality of election commissions, use of administrative resources in favor of the incumbent, numerous facts of coercion of voters to participate in early voting, the closure of some election procedures for observers.

The most important reason for criticism is the lack of transparency of the vote count, which does not allow considering the election results as a reflection of the will of voters.

"Right to Choose-2015” campaign also presented the results of their observations on October 12

The main distinguishing feature of this campaign, which differentiates it from other observation efforts carried out by human rights defenders or international observers is the focus on "active observation” that includes mobilization of volunteers not only to record, but also actively counter violations, say the organizers of the "Right to Choose-2015” campaign.

The coordinators of the campaign are Dzianis Sadouski (the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy) and Ales Silkou (“For Freedom” Movement). The campaign united eight political and civic forces: Belarusian People’s Front (BPF), Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD), Belarusian Social-Democratic Party "Hramada” (BSDP-G), "For Freedom” Movement, "Tell the Truth!” Civic Campaign, "The Greens” party, the organizing committee of Party of Freedom and Progress (PFP), Belarusian Trade Union of Radio-Electronic Industry (REP).

According to Dzianis Sadouski, the biggest distortion in figures was indicated at the polling stations where no observers were present.  During the early vote, as the coordinator stated, the campaign had lists of voters and could compare attendance at 552 polling stations, during the main day of voting – in 450. During the early vote the observers indicated attendance of 29.8%, whereas the election committees claimed that it was 31.1%. During the main day of vote the observers indicated attendance of 42.2%, whereas the official data – 46.2%.

Conclusions

"Right to Choose-2015” monitoring campaign names the presidential election-2015 unfree and unfair. The vote counting was carried out non-transparently and the results announced by the CEC are not credible. All the negative practices that were previously the subject of criticism of national and international observers were continued in this campaign, the "Right to Choose-2015” monitoring campaign believes.

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights notes a number of improvements and foresees “a considerable way to go in meeting its OSCE commitments for democratic elections”.

It is stated in the report of the OSCE/ODIHR presented on October 12 at the press conference in Minsk.

The report stresses the need for the political will to engage in a comprehensive reform process. For now the observers saw only some specific improvements and “a welcoming attitude” towards the mission.

The mission states that “some significant problems, particularly during the counting and tabulation of votes, undermined the integrity of the election”.

According to Kent Harstedt, Special Coordinator and Leader of the Short-Term OSCE Observer Mission, “it is clear that Belarus still has a long way to go towards fulfilling its democratic commitments”. “The recent release of political prisoners and a welcoming approach to observers was positive developments. However, the hope that this gave us for the broader electoral process was largely unfulfilled. Given previous promises, I was especially disappointed by shortcomings during counting and tabulation. We hope that the Belarusian government will have the political will to engage in a thorough reform process, which we are ready to support”, - Harstedt stated.

According to the mission, the voting process on election day was assessed positively in 95 per cent of polling stations observed, however a large number of observers were not allowed to check voter lists, and seemingly identical signatures were observed in 47 polling stations. The counting process was assessed negatively in 30 percent of stations observed, indicating significant problems. The tabulation process was assessed negatively and as lacking transparency in 25% of instances observed.

The report of the observation mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for the presidential elections in Belarus will be released on November 27.

Meanwhile, as it became known late on October 12, the EU Foreign Affairs Council decided to suspend sanctions against Belarus for the next four months. According to French European Affairs Minister Harlem Desir they can be re-instated immediately if that is required.