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Head of OSCE observation mission describes election campaign as low-key

The head of the observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights for Belarus’ September 18-23 House of Representatives elections said that there was a low-key election campaign ahead of the vote.

While talking to reporters at a polling station in Minsk on Sunday, Antonio Milososki noted that election commissions did not represent the country's entire political spectrum and not all political entities had trust in them as a result.

When asked whether the mission had already received any reports of vote fraud, Mr. Milososki, Macedonia’s foreign minister between 2006 and 2011, said that the mission was gathering information from polling stations and would make an assessment after analyzing it. He said that a preliminary report on the elections would be unveiled on September 24.

Mr. Milososki said that he met with Sergei Lebedev, head of the CIS observation mission, earlier in the day to discuss the election campaign and Belarus' Electoral Code. Both missions share the goal of giving a transparent opinion of the elections, he said.

When asked by a reporter why the OSCE sent as many as 300 monitors to observe Belarus' elections, Mr. Milososki denied that the country enjoyed any particular attention from the international organization. In particular, he said, some 200 OSCE observers are deployed to monitor elections in Macedonia, which has a population of just two million people. //BelaPAN