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The Foreign Ministry informed BNS that the elections will be observed on Sunday by three Lithuanian diplomats residing in the country, while Vilnius will not send their representatives.
Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the head of the temporary group Seimas “For Democratic Belarus”, raises the question of the significance of going to observe the elections when they are obviously undemocratic, after refusing to register opponents of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Furthermore, as the parliamentarian points out, the travel of politicians is limited due to the threat of the coronavirus. The Board of Seimas decided not to send parliamentarians on business trips during the pandemic.
“The electoral process is not just about voting, it is about the conditions under which an equivalent competition is carried out or not before, such has not happened in Belarus in the last 25 years, so the observation is to Sometimes basically meaningless, it can be demonstrative and the like. ” Kasčiūnas.
“Naturally, not registering the main candidates is already a violation and proof of an authoritarian regime. The processes that have taken place so far attest to the fact that the process is not transparent, democratic and fair,” said the politician.
The head of the Central Election Commission, Laura Matjošaitytė, confirmed to BNS that the commission has not received invitations to observe the elections in Belarus for several years.
“Our electoral commission has certainly not received any invitation to observe. We have received invitations long before, but certainly not in recent years,” said the CEC president.
During the last presidential elections in Belarus in 2015, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania sent its observers to Belarus, and several politicians from the Seimas delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe were also seconded.
President Lukashenko, 65, who has been in power for nearly three decades, is seeking to secure the opportunity to serve as head of state for the sixth term in this weekend’s elections as public anger grows over your government.
Lukashenko’s regime cracked down on the opposition in the run-up to the vote, with many protesters and some aspiring candidates arrested.
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