Russia Promises Do Utmost to Make Belarus’ Parliamentary Elections Assessment Objective

Russia will do its utmost to make the assessment of the Belarusian parliamentary elections objective and impartial and to make sure that the elections are not a subject of the unilateral rules that the OSCE tries to impose despite the repeated collective suggestions to elaborate commonly accepted election monitoring rules. The relevant statement was made by Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov at a meeting with Aliaksandr Lukashenka in Minsk on August 15.

Sergei Lavrov underlined:

“Now we see the OSCE’s growing understanding of the need to impose order in this sphere.”

“This is what we have been trying to achieve. Now it is important to bring the parliamentary decision to the intergovernmental level. We have talked about this with Belarusian Foreign Minister Siarhiej Martynau. This point will be a raised at a joint board of the Foreign Ministries of Belarus and Russia that will be held in Minsk in October 2012. Undoubtedly, all international issues will be discussed at the session, including the uneasy situation in the north of Africa, in the Middle East and in other troubled spots.”

The Russian FM underscored that he had already discussed with Sergei Martynov the fulfillment of the arrangements that were made during the visit of Dmitry Medvedev and the chairpersons of both chambers of the Federal Assembly.

“There are many arrangements, including those on the parliamentary supervision of the Eurasian integration. This is important for the efficient legislative consolidation of the agreements reached by Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan,”

Sergei Lavrov underlined that he brought up the point of the parliamentary elections and the OSCE activities at the meeting with his Belarusian counterpart on 15 August.

“We have a decision of the CIS Council of Heads of Government that the CIS monitoring mission should play a more significant role during the presidential and parliamentary elections. This decision is designed to get more of our observers influencing these processes in the European space and challenging the monopoly of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE ODIHR) and the Parliamentary Assembly so that the estimations are given on the basis of well thought and collective approaches and opinions,”

He underscored that Russia will secure the participation of its citizens in various observation missions during the parliamentary elections in Belarus, including in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, OSCE ODIHR and, of course, the CIS. “

So I can assure you that we will do everything to make the assessments objective and impartial,”

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