MINSK, 23 January (BelTA) – The CIS election observation mission has started working in Belarus, Sergei Lebedev, CIS Secretary General and head of the CIS observation mission for Belarus’ parliamentary and local elections, told journalists after meeting with Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Belarus Igor Karpenko, BelTA has learned.
“The CIS election observation mission has already started working. Our today’s meeting at the Central Election Commission marked the official start of the work of this mission. The mission headquarters began operating at the CIS Executive Committee office on 17 Kirova Street. We assume that the mission will be staffed by about 50 long-term observers. Our mission will include parliamentarians and diplomats from the CIS countries, employees of the CIS Executive Committee, members of the central election commissions of the CIS nations. We expect that the CIS election observation mission will include a total of about 150 people,” Sergei Lebedev informed.
Speaking about Western observers, the CIS secretary general remarked that not only Belarus, but also other countries of the Commonwealth get criticized and rebuked for the alleged non-compliance of elections with some international electoral standards.
“These norms are not written on paper. But they are used, especially by Western observers, to make critical assessments and to put forward some demands. We have repeatedly proposed to our Western colleagues to develop uniform election monitoring norms to avoid double standards. But they remain unresponsive to our proposal. This bias on the part of Western observers, in my opinion, was the reason why the leadership of Belarus chose not to invite Western observers. We will not receive an objective assessment from them,” said Sergei Lebedev.
According to the CIS secretary general, Belarusians saw this very clearly in 2020: “Observation by the OSCE/ODIHR mission and some other Western structures was used only to interfere in the internal affairs of Belarus. Therefore, I understand the decision of the leadership of Belarus.”
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