The Central Election Commission has published the figures on monitoring the upcoming presidential election.
33,579 persons are expected to act as election observers; most of them are representatives of state-run or state-controlled bodies, e.g. state trade unions (8,059), the Belarusian Women’s Union (3,005), the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (5,334), Belaya Rus (4,326) and others.
Only 47 persons from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee are allowed to watch the work of the election commissions.
1,111 members of political parties have been registered as election observers; notably, the representatives of the opposition are hardly present on the list.
As reported earlier, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will not send observers to the 2020 presidential election in Belarus due to the ‘epidemiological situation’.
The presidential election is to take place on August, 9. This year’s campaign is gaining momentum: lots of Belarusians spent hours in queques to sign for the nomination of a person or persons who revealed their presidential ambitions. Indeed, the people’s active involvement is indicative of their fatigue with the 26-year rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. However, many Belarusian citizens, including presidential hopefuls, journalists and politicians, are being subjected to the unprecedented pressure from the authorities.
