Sergei Lebedev: objective evaluation vital in election monitoring
Planned preparations for elections to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus are in progress in the Mogilev oblast, Sergei Lebedev, head of the CIS election monitoring mission, told reporters. On August 25 he visited the Mogilev oblast, met with Mogilev oblast governor Boris Batura, visited district and polling station election commissions.
The head of the mission said, an objective evaluation of the election process, assistance to election commissions and local authorities in holding the elections for the sake of democratic elections are key things in the work of election observers.
In his words, his impressions of visiting two district election commissions and a polling station election commissions are positive, “good planned work is going on”. The local authorities and heads of election commissions have a responsible attitude towards elections and do their best to make elections democratic in order to take into account all wishes of observers and to observe their rights, said Sergei Lebedev.
OSCE observers work alongside the CIS observers. “Heads of the election commissions we have visited told us that the Western observers have no remarks at present. Everything goes according to the plan,” stressed Sergei Lebedev.
He also noted, “Western observers had a somewhat biased attitude towards requirements for holding elections in the CIS but the last few months showed a good tendency we like: a desire for cooperation expressed by the OSCE and CIS monitoring missions”. “We are ready for collaboration. We also keep in touch with representatives of other monitoring missions,” added Sergei Lebedev.
The CIS monitoring mission started working in Belarus on July 29. On August 12 branches of the observing mission started working in all oblasts of the country, including the Mogilev one. The Mogilev oblast branch of the CIS monitoring mission is headed by Kazakhstan representative Bakhyt Dosanov.
