Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections

The expert election* 2024 observation mission was organized by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Viasna Human Rights Center as part of the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign. The mission collects and analyzes information about the election campaign based on open sources and messages from voters from Belarus.

CONCLUSIONS

• The formation of the territorial election commissions (TEC) and district election commissions (DEC), which are an important mechanism of the electoral process, confirmed the trend towards absolute control over all stages of the elections* 2024 by the authorities;
• in accordance with the updated legislation, observers were not able to attend meetings of the bodies that formed the TEC and DEC;
• the stage of nomination to election commissions was accompanied by pressure from law enforcement agencies in the form of searches and inspections of people who were active during previous election campaigns, which only strengthened the climate of fear and was a kind of signal to potential participants in the election campaign about the possible consequences of taking part in the activities of the commissions;
• the range of subjects that nominated their representatives to the TEC and DEC has been sharply limited (as a result of ongoing repression, the number of public associations has decreased drastically; after re-registration, only 4 pro-government political parties remained out of 16);
• the majority of representatives to the DEC (74.3%) and a significant part to the TEC (47.1%) were nominated by pro-government public associations; 4 political parties nominated 2.83% of representatives to the TEC and 16.3% to the DEC;
• poor informing of voters about the opportunity to participate in the formation of election commissions indicates the disinterest of the authorities and key actors, i.e. political parties and other public associations, in the active participation of voters in the activities of election commissions;
• the process of holding meetings on the formation of territorial and district election commissions was characterized by a low degree of openness and transparency, did not provide sufficient information to citizens, was perfunctory and took place under strict administrative control of the authorities;
• the share of representatives of political parties in the TEC and DEC remains insignificant (2.9% and 15.6%, respectively) compared with the share of representatives of public associations (44.5% and 57.8%, respectively);
• the main resource of the actors responsible for holding the elections*, as before, are the five largest public associations (Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM), Belaya Rus, the Women's Union, the Association of Veterans, the Peace Foundation) and trade unions of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, which (except for the Peace Foundation) have a legislatively established special relations with the state since 2023; the success rate of their nominated representatives to the commissions is 98.7% in the TEC and 99% in the DEC;
• administrative control over the formation of commissions and the predetermination of decisions on the approval of their composition are confirmed by the ratio of nominated and elected members: 98.4%;
• there are no representatives of “non-loyal” parties and independent public associations in all established election commissions;
• gender imbalance persists: the share of women (81.7%) in the composition of commissions significantly exceeds the share of men (18.3%).

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

"Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections"