About 85% of voters take part in presidential elections

10 августа 2020
The morning press conference of the CEC head, in fact, crowned the main political campaign of the year. There will be no second round of presidential elections in the country. According to the Central Election Commission, the incumbent Head of State had enough support to win the first round.

Lidia Yermoshina, Chairperson of the Central Commission of Belarus for Elections and National Referendums: "The results were literally obtained manually due to the fact that the Central Commission, at least me and the analyst, were evacuated from the Government House at one o'clock in the morning. So we didn't accept the results. We only accepted them now."

The results are preliminary, the CEC head specified. The data will be checked in detail, as required by the law, in the coming days. But we shouldn't wait for radical changes in the overall picture of voting. Almost 85% of the voters on the lists participated in the current campaign. And that's 5 million 800 thousand people. And over 4.5 million supported the current head of state.

The CIS Observation Mission assessed the election campaign


The way the Belarusians voted was watched by observers, both domestic and international experts. In the morning, the head of the CIS mission Sergei Lebedev made a special statement to the media. 180 observers started their work on July 24. The mission was completed with the closure of the polling stations. They visited all the regions and found out the opinions of the opponents. The observers are sure that there is no reason to question the legitimacy of elections, since there are no facts discrediting the work of election commissions. 

Some violation cases were fixed, but they were occasional. The main thing is openness, competitiveness and freedom of expression of will. The participants of the mission are sure: there is no arguing with the vote results.

Arzu Nagiyev, international observer (Azerbaijan): "Naturally, we were in other regions, in other elections as observers too. All conditions for observation were created in Belarus. Yesterday we were in the Partisan District of Minsk. We were also present during the counting of votes at one of the polling stations. I think everything went well, there were no restrictions for observers".

Grigory Rapota, State Secretary of the Union State: "As for the law and the electoral right, we have not found any violations. We have not found any violations at all. 56 polling stations were checked both during the early and the main vote. From this point of view, there are no complaints". 

The observation mission also responded to the criticism of the early voting. It was said that such a practice exists in Western Europe, as well as overseas, in the United States. And there, the terms proposed by the law are even longer. There were no strict prohibitions for the Belarusians, In general, the election commissions passed the exam despite the political heat and queues at the polling stations. 

Dmitry Kobitsky, CIS IPA Council Secretary General: "It is clear that voters' initiative was manifested differently in some cities. In Moscow and St. Petersburg queues were created, there was a mass arrival of voters. But everybody was allowed to vote, to express their will. There they had to work a little longer. The fact that it was decided to extend voting at a number of polling stations in Belarus is a normal practice. It's not the first time it happens; we don't see any violation, although it is a challenge for the election commission".

In the coming days, the data in the context of each region and the capital will be specified. The official results (and today there were only preliminary ones) will be announced by the Central Election Commission on Friday, August 14.  A stream will be held on the CEC website. The broadcast will be available to everybody.