Aleksandr Lukashenko meets with CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev

President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko met with Sergei Lebedev, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee - CIS Executive Secretary, chief of the CIS mission at the Belarusian parliamentary elections, on 24 September.

Aleksandr Lukashenko has thanked the CIS observation mission for its work. “I have been told today that CIS observers visited all the 110 electoral districts. You have a complete picture of how it was,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“We tried to hold the elections as democratically as we could so that it will go without a hitch. However, there were certain issues, but it is natural, there are over 7,000 polling stations and about 7.5 million voters in the country. There will probably be some flaws, but we are determined to work on them,” the President said.

“But from elections to elections, you may have noticed, we get better bit by bit and try to make these processes as automatic as possible due to the unbelievable pressure from Western countries, you know it. We are calm about it. They may have some rational ideas and I, among other people, am ready to listen to them and make relevant conclusions. The only thing we do not accept is a priori excessive pressure. Belarus is governed by the supremacy of the law, the Constitution,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“Vladimir Churov, Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Russia, made a surprisingly accurate comment about it. He said there is a Constitution, there are laws, you have to assess whether the elections meet the laws of Belarus. And there is nothing to find fault with. All the rest is just foam,” the President said. “It is a very precise absolute assessment for any country. We hold elections for our own sake and in line with our own laws. They may not be perfect but for now the laws are in effect and we have to abide by them. I am ready to hear out serious remarks. We are ready to work on them,” said the head of state.

Sergei Lebedev noted that the assessment of the CIS observation mission was objective, “because the mission saw the whole picture clearly and in great detail”. “I emphasize that we came here as friends of Belarus and Belarusians; we know each other better than western observers and therefore we see even more. We see the same picture as westerners do, but we see it with the eyes of friends. If we see any flaws (some insignificant flaws that were revealed do not affect the results of the elections), we do not dramatize them, but work on removing them,” the chief of the CIS observation mission said.

“We unanimously came to the conclusion that the elections in Belarus strictly complied with the legislation of the Republic of Belarus, the Electoral Code, and the Constitution. They were open, democratic and provided citizens of the Republic of Belarus with the right to free expression of the will,” Sergei Lebedev said. He emphasized that this conclusion was made by all the CIS member states taking part in the observation.

He thanked all government agencies for collaboration: “We got an opportunity to study election-related documents; all the doors were opened for us both at polling stations and at government agencies. We got a rather detailed picture that helped us formulate an objective conclusion. On the other hand, during the election observation we tried to help local electoral bodies to remove flaws that we revealed. The number of flaws was insignificant”.

Sergei Lebedev told the head of state about the election observation activities of the CIS mission.