The statement of the Coordination Committee of The Belarusian National Platform the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum on the 2019 Belarusian parliamentary election

● The State­ment of Pre­lim­i­nary Find­ings and Con­clu­sions of the Mis­sion of the Office for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Insti­tu­tions and Human Rights in Europe and the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe

● The research report of the “Human Rights Defend­ers for Free Elec­tions” civ­il cam­paign

● Inter­im reports of the “Right to Choose” obser­va­tion cam­paign

● The par­lia­men­tary elec­tions’ media cov­er­age mon­i­tor­ing con­duct­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists assume that the elec­tions’ process of the can­di­dates for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Nation­al Assem­bly of the Repub­lic of Belarus the sev­enth con­vo­ca­tion did not com­ply with the inter­na­tion­al require­ments and nation­al leg­is­la­tion. In par­tic­u­lar:

● The elec­tion com­mit­tee did not include the major­i­ty of the oppo­si­tion polit­i­cal par­ties’ and inde­pen­dent civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives applied.

● Pre­dom­i­nant­ly oppo­si­tion appli­cants were refused to reg­is­ter the can­di­dates or their reg­is­tra­tion was elim­i­nat­ed by the elec­tion com­mit­tee for for­mal rea­sons.

● Equal access con­di­tions of all the can­di­dates and the State Media were absent.

● The pro­ce­dure of the ear­ly vot­ing remained intrans­par­ent. Unknown peo­ple were noticed enter­ing the premis­es of one of the polling sta­tions at night­time. Bal­lot-box stuff­ing was noticed. A num­ber of vot­ers were com­pelled to par­tic­i­pate in the ear­ly vot­ing.

● The pro­ce­dure of the votes’ count­ing remained intrans­par­ent for the observers.

● Jour­nal­ists of inde­pen­dent media’s work was obstruct­ed.

Pro­ceed­ing from the facts men­tioned above, the Coor­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee of the Belaru­sian Nation­al Plat­form the East­ern Part­ner­ship Civ­il Soci­ety Forum:

● declare not to accept the elec­tions of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Nation­al Assem­bly of the Repub­lic of Belarus the sev­enth con­vo­ca­tion as demo­c­ra­t­ic, free and fair,

● express regret that Belarus did not use the chance to move clos­er towards the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of the elec­tions’ pro­ce­dures,

● calls upon the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment to imple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Office for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Insti­tu­tions and Human Rights in Europe and the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe,

● calls upon the Euro­pean Union gov­ern­ment and the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion to rein­force the issue of the elec­tions in Belarus in accor­dance with the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards on the agen­da of bilat­er­al (EU-Belarus Coor­di­na­tion Group and Human Rights Dia­logue) and mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ings with­in the East­ern Part­ner­ship. The Coor­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee of the BNP EaP CSF