Situation on the eve of the elections*2024. First report of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”
The expert monitoring mission of the elections*2024 is carried out by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center "Viasna" within the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections".
CONCLUSIONS
The 2024 elections* in Belarus begin in conditions of continuous repression; in the virtual absence of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association; in a climate of total fear and political purges. After the post-election crisis of 2020 and the constitutional changes of 2022, there have been significant changes in the legal regulation of elections. These changes are aimed at reducing the role of parliament, narrowing the circle of participants in electoral processes, limiting the electoral rights of citizens and increasing the control of the authorities over the electoral process.
Changes in the legal regulation of elections in Belarus make them unfree and unfair in practice. At the level of law enforcement and administrative practice, there are ongoing repressions against any manifestations of what is perceived by the authorities as political activity; independent media and almost all civil society organizations, especially human rights organizations, have been dissolved. The existing remedies are still ineffective; there are no guarantees of the independence of the courts; law enforcement practice remains unpredictable. All this makes it possible to say that citizens cannot exercise their voting rights.
*The term "elections*" in relation to the 2024 election campaign is used with an asterisk by the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections campaign to emphasize the perfunctory nature of this term, since any free and fair election campaign presupposes, first of all, conditions where rights and freedoms are fully realized, including freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, freedom from discrimination, which is currently practically absent in Belarus
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