Belarusian parliamentary election, 2008

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Belarus

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Belarus

Constitution President Alexander Lukashenko Government Prime Minister: Sergey Sidorsky National Assembly Council of the Republic House of Representatives People's Assembly Constitutional Court Supreme Court Economic Court Elections Foreign relations Administrative division Political parties Historic rulers

Other countries · Atlas  Politics portal view • talk • edit

A parliamentary election was held in Belarus on 28 September 2008.^[1] The 110 seats in the House of Representatives were at stake.^[2]

Lidia Yermoshina, the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission, announced on 29 August that 276 candidates were registered for the election. 365 people initially sought to run, but five withdrew and candidate registration for 84 others was rejected.^[2] Just prior to the election, the number of the registered candidates was reduced to 263;^[3] 82 of the candidates were members of political parties, the others were non-partisans loyal to the government. They included chief executives of local authorities and medical institutions, and top managers of large enterprises.^[4] The election was attempted to be monitored by 925 international and more than 17000 local observers,^[5] including an OSCE mission consisting of some 450 members from 43 countries.^[6] Belarusian citizens abroad were able to cast their votes at 40 polling stations located in 31 countries.^[7] Advance voting occurred on September 23–26 and was characterized by active participation: more than 26% of registered voters cast their ballots.^[8] According to the preliminary results, the total turnout was 75.3%.^[9]

According to OSCE, the elections were undemocratic and the work of international observers was seriously hindered as the observers were refused access to the facilities where the votes were counted.^[10]

The Belaya Rus party, founded to support Lukashenko and modelled after the United Russia party, contested the election for the first time.

Contents 1 Results 2 References 3 External links 4 Election observers

[edit] Results

According to the official results the oppositional parties failed to gain any of the 110 available seats, all of which were given to parties and non-partisan candidates loyal to president Alexander Lukashenko. The Central Election Commission declared this to be due to the overwhelming popular fear of mass demonstrations and of the "radical political changes" demanded by the opposition. This declaration was met with immediate anti-governmental demonstrations in the centre of Minsk protesting against electoral fraud. President Lukashenko commented that the opposition in Belarus is financed by foreign countries and is not needed.^[11]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Sole entrepreneurs will nominate their representatives for this fall’s parliamentary elections
• Parliamentary Election in Belarus 2008 on Google Maps
• Writing how Democrate elections is being done
• second Writing how Democrate elections is being done
• Improvements of Democracy in Belarus News

[edit] Election observers

• First report of OSCE (Athmosphere before elections)

v • d • e  Belarusian presidential elections 1994 · 2001 · 2006  Belarusian parliamentary elections 1995 · 2000 · 2004 · 2008  Belarusian referendums 1995 · 1996 · 2004