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Belarus’ election officials meet with head of OSCE/ODIHR observation mission

 

Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, and other members of the commission on November 15 met with Ambassador Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, head of the observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for Belarus’ presidential election.

“The election campaign is going on according to plans and very calmly,” Ms. Yarmoshyna said. “We are ready to provide you with full information about the progress of the presidential election.”

Ms. Yarmoshyna handed international election observer’s certificates to Dr. Ahrens and other members of the OSCE/ODIHR mission.

The mission will pay particular attention to early voting and the ballot-counting procedure, Dr. Ahrens said.

He noted that the largest number of the complaints that OSCE/ODIHR observers had received were about these two stages of the election process.

Dr. Ahrens welcomed the central election commission’s amendment to its methodological recommendations for the organization and conducting of the 2010 presidential election, which suggested that observers should be given “a real opportunity” to watch the counting of ballots, and that conditions should be created at the polling stations to ensure the ”visibility” of the ballot-counting process. //BelaPAN