Final HRD Monitoring Report on Presidential Election in Belarus

“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign presents its final monitoring report on the 2010 presidential election in Belarus. The report gives the campaign's overall conclusions on the election, provides comprehensive analysis of the voting and counting stages and includes recommendations on how the election process could be brought in line with international standards.

Major report’s finding is that the election failed to meet key international standards for democratic elections. While the pre-election period was marked by a number of improvements, the process quickly deteriorated on the election day. In particular, the vote count and tabulation lacked transparency and accountability and were marked by widespread irregularities.  Evidence collected by observers clearly demonstrates that the official election results did not reflect the will of the people.

The campaign is a joint undertaking of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna” (http://spring96.org) and Belarusian Helsinki Committee (http://www.belhelcom.org), implemented in cooperation with Europaischer Austausch / European Exchange (www.european-exchange.org). The campaign is independent and politically non-engaged.

The observation was conducted by 80 long-term observers from the first day of electoral campaign (14 September). During early voting (14-18 December) and on the election day (19 December), 600 short-term campaign observers were permanently present at 300 polling stations throughout the country.