Monitors call Belarus poll undemocratic

BELARUS:EUROPEAN MONITORS have condemned Sunday's general election in Belarus as undemocratic, after all 110 seats in parliament were filled by allies of autocratic president Alexander Lukashenko.

The result and the report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) undermined the possibility of a rapprochement with the West, which had offered to improve ties with Mr Lukashenko if the ballot was significantly better than others held during his 14 years in power.

"Despite some minor improvements . . . the parliamentary election in Belarus ultimately fell short of OSCE commitments for democratic elections," the OSCE said.

"Voting was generally well conducted, but the process deteriorated considerably during the vote count . . . was assessed as bad or very bad in 48 per cent of polling stations visited. Where access was possible, several cases of deliberate falsification of results were observed. OSCE monitors were prevented or hindered from observing the vote count in 35 per cent of cases."

Mr Lukashenko had promised to deliver the most free and fair elections ever held in Belarus, and let far more opposition candidates than usual take part in the ballot and allowed more than 450 international monitors oversee the event.

But the election was deeply flawed from the start, the OSCE said. "The media coverage of the campaign did not provide meaningful information for voters . . . and restrictions imposed by the state authorities did not allow for a vibrant campaign with real competition."

But opposition parties, who had feared western monitors would soft-pedal criticism of the election in a bid to woo Mr Lukashenko away from Moscow, said the rigged vote showed that he was still what Washington has called "Europe's last dictator".

"This is a defeat for Europe, a defeat of European diplomacy, a defeat of the European politicians who already envisaged making deals here," said one opposition leader, Anatoly Lebedko.

Former parliamentary speaker Mecheslav Grib said of Mr Lukashenko: "It seems to me he started this chess game with the West on the recognition of the elections, and then he interrupted it and hit the West on the head with the chessboard."