MINSK, 31 January (BelTA) - Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Igor Karpenko commented on the statements of the OSCE/ODIHR as he spoke in an interview to the ONT TV channel, BelTA has learned.
“I would quote the words from the famous cartoon about Winnie the Pooh: “I thought for a long time and finally realized that these are the wrong bees. First of all, no one gave this organization the exclusivity of assessing elections in any countries. I mean these statements about Belarus deprived of independent assessment. I would disagree. We had 486 international observers, including two large international organizations, such as the CIS and the SCO, the CSTO, the Pan-African Parliament,” Igor Karpenko said. “They may say to us that Europe has a true democracy, different from ours. Then the question arises: who authorized you to make such assessments? Were such decisions taken at the level of heads of state? Were they ratified by the national parliaments? There was nothing of the kind. What are they guided by in making such assessments?”
For example, there is a Convention on Standards for Democratic Elections in the CIS. We adhere to it, the CEC head emphasized. “It was not just signed by the heads of state, but ratified by the national parliaments of our states. Thus, it has acquired the force of a legislative act, an international treaty, which we apply both in the assessment of elections and in the assessment of our electoral legislation. When we adjust it, we correlate these things and analyze them,” he added. “The West uses only guidelines that they have written for each country. Therefore, today this organization, in order to get away from being described as ‘wrong bees’, should sit down at the negotiating table, discuss the methodology of election assessment, make balanced decisions and apply this methodology for all countries without exception, regardless of whether it is Belarus or the UK, the USA or Germany, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Moldova. It is necessary to clearly develop approaches. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet.”
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