January 22, Pozirk. Election commissions of various levels accredited 44,361 domestic observers for the presidential election that started with early voting yesterday and will conclude on the main voting day on January 26.
Most of the accredited election monitors, 30,138, represent pro-government associations, including 8,957 observers representing the official trade union federation; 4,546, the official youth union; 4,469, the Biełaja Ruś organization; 4,340 and 4,211 2,598, the veterans’ and women’s associations, respectively.
A total of 4,901 accredited observers are members of pro-government parties, among them 2,626 members of the Biełaja Ruś party uniting Alaksandar Łukašenka supporters, 1,232 Communists, 679 members of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice and 364 of the Liberal-Democratic Party. All four parties are known to be loyal to the current government.
The rest are individual applicants vetted by the authorities that banned independent observation.
Authorities also accredited 445 foreign observers. Two-thirds represent Russia-dominated integration structures and are likely to come up with flattering assessments. Minsk invited the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers less than a week ahead of the vote to make quality observation impossible.
Some 7.8 percent of voters cast their ballots on January 21, the first day of early voting, a record first-day turnout for Belarusian elections, according to Pozirk‘s analysis of the official historical data. Independent monitors have criticized the early voting process as vulnerable to abuse.
The current race is taking place in a purged political landscape amid a new wave of crackdown on regime critics with only three months allocated for the whole election cycle.
The presidential bidders are Łukašenka, in power since 1994, his supporters Aleh Hajdukievič, Alaksandar Chižniak and Siarhiej Syrankoŭ. Another candidate is Hanna Kanapackaja, a former member of the United Civic Party and an MP from 2016 to 2019, who also ran for president in 2020. She positions herself as a “democratic alternative,” yet criticizes Łukašenka’s exiled or jailed opponents rather than himself.
The Belarusian opposition dismissed the election as a sham, noting that political reprisals prevent pro-democracy candidates from running and voters from freely expressing their will.
Belarus has not held a single free and fair election since 1996 by the OSCE standards.
