BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/11/2010

Belarusian Central Elections Commission head forecasts one-round election

MINSK, November 30 (Itar-Tass) -- The Belarusian presidential election of December 19 will have one round, Central Elections Commission Chairperson Lidia Yermoshina said on Tuesday.

"Why do you think that will be a two-round election? I am positive I will see in New Year at home," she told reporters.

Yermoshina said she did not trust sociological services, which estimated the rating of President Alexander Lukashenko at less than 50%. She said the media should trust voters instead of 'certain sociological services that wished to create an atmosphere of mistrust.'

The Central Elections Commission decided on Tuesday to make 7.44 million voting papers for the upcoming election. The amount of spare voting papers must not exceed 5% of the number of voters.

As of late November 2010, the country had slightly more than 7.09 million voters. The voting papers will be taken to polling stations on December 13.

There are ten candidates, among them President Alexander Lukashenko who has been in office for 16 years.

Earlier in the day the Central Elections Commission gave a warning to opposition candidates Vitaly Rymashevsky and Nikolai Statkevich, who organized an unauthorized action in downtown Minsk on November 24.

"The organizers knew that the action was illegal but they breached the law on purpose," the Central Elections Commission said.

Rymashevsky and Statkevich breached the election campaign rules with the action on Oktyabrskaya Square, which was not on the list of sites permitted for canvassing, the Commission said.

At the same time, the registration of these presidential candidates is still valid.

About 1,000 international observers will be monitoring the election, Yermoshina said earlier.

"Forty long-term observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are already working in Belarus. Another 400 OSCE observers will come to Belarus the day before the election. An approximately same number of observers or even more will arrive from the CIS Executive Committee," she said.

"Besides, there will be independent election monitors, who represent central elections commissions of CIS member countries, Georgia, Lithuania and Latvia and a number of foreign ministries," Yermoshina said.

More than 5,000 national election observers have been accredited, and their number may grow several times shortly before the ballot.

Election observers have broader rights this time, Yermoshina said. "The Central Elections Commission has approved a resolution, which says that election monitors will see the count of votes," she said.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15732636&PageNum=0


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