Belarus has a president elected in undemocratic way, says human right activist

2001-09-21 21:40:00

Minsk, 21 September. Belarus has a president elected in an undemocratic way, therefore he is illegitimate from the point of view of the international community, Tatyana Protko, chairwoman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, said. Speaking to reporters in Minsk on September 21, Ms. Protko pointed out that the authorities had failed to ensure equal access to the media for all candidates and harassed opposition figures during and after the recent election campaign. "Thus the authorities cynically ignored the main requirements of the OSCE," she said. Ms. Protko noted that despite the constitutional requirement that the president must be elected by secret ballot, up to 60 percent of the voters at rural polling stations had no alternative but to vote openly. An overwhelming majority of those who voted at home cast their ballots for Aleksandr Lukashenko out of fear, Ms. Protko said. "Under such conditions, no vote count and no voting records can be recognized as fair," she added. "The saddest thing about this is that people who violated the election law will not be punished by the current authorities, but will be rewarded," Ms. Protko said. She noted that the authorities might pay an equivalent of up to $700 to each of "the people who caused damage to Belarus' national interests by their actions."