Statement of the Press-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on the elections in the USA

838eng-04-11-2004

The Republic of Belarus attentively followed the course of the presidential elections in the USA.

We respect the choice of the American people.

At the same time we would like to note the following.

According to the information from independent international observers and representatives of mass media there were a number of violations of fundamental international commitments related to elections both during the election campaign and on the voting day. Among them were violations of the obligations under the OSCE Copenhagen Document of 1990.

The United States authorities did not make sufficient efforts to eliminate the serious shortcomings of the US electoral system, revealed in September 2004 by the fact-finding Mission of OSCE ODIHR.

Therefore we are not surprised by the numerous reports on the large number of missing preliminary voting-papers, failures of electronic voting systems, intimidation of voters, missing voters in electoral registers, impossibility to freely obtain information at local and county electoral commissions on the voting procedure and sites.

According to the reports of Belarusian observers, some foreign NGOs, including American ones, the US authorities have not ensured an unimpeded work of the international observers, including those who represented the Republic of Belarus. Accreditation of international observers was practically impossible in a number of states. In the states where accreditation was possible, the international observers, including the OSCE observers, were limited by unprecedented strict constraints, imposed by local state authorities.

These facts dispute the transparency and democratic nature of the elections that took place in the USA.

We hope that the OSCE ODIHR mission of international observers will accurately and impartially reflect the course of the electoral campaign and will give a relevant assessment to the US elections.