Parliamentary election in Belarus 2019
The parliamentary elections in Belarus in 2019 took place on November 17th. The 110 members of the House of Representatives were elected.
date
According to the constitution, parliamentary elections had to take place on September 6, 2020 at the latest. On April 19, President Aljaksandr Lukashenka announced parliamentary elections for 2019 and presidential elections for 2020 . On August 5, 2019, the election date for the House of Representatives was set for November 17, 2019 by presidential decree.
Electoral system
The House of Representatives of Belarus consists of 110 MPs, who are elected in as many constituencies using simple majority voting. Candidates for the House of Representatives must be citizens of Belarus, reside there, at least 21 years old and have no previous convictions. Candidates can be nominated in three different ways: by political parties, by work collectives or by collecting signatures. In order to nominate candidates, political parties must have been officially registered with the Ministry of Justice of Belarus at least six months in advance. Candidates must be nominated by the governing bodies (party presidium) of the respective party. In the case of nomination by a work collective, this must include at least 300 people and at least half of the collective members must be present during the nomination process. In the case of a nomination through a signature collection, an initiative group of at least 10 people must collect 1000 valid signatures in one constituency. Admission to the election is granted by the regional election commission. Candidates must be nominated between the 70th and 30th day before the election date.
People who were not there on election day or were unable to vote on site for other reasons had the opportunity to vote early. Early voting was possible from November 12 to 16, 2019 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. According to the electoral commission, no official document had to be presented to prove the absence on the actual election day.
Candidates
The parties considered loyal to the government - Communists (KPB), Liberal Democrats (LDP), Agrarian Party , Belarusian Patriotic Party , Labor and Justice , Republican Party and Socialist Sports Party - and the opposition parties United Citizens Party , Partyja BNF , United Left Party “Righteous Welt ” , Greens , BSDP H and BSDH stood for election.
According to the Central Electoral Commission of Belarus, a total of 560 candidates have been admitted to the election to the House of Representatives. 367 of these (65.5%) were members of political parties, including 98 candidates from the LDP, followed by 57 from the CPB and 47 from the United Citizens' Party. Later, 23 candidates withdrew their applications and 10 more were refused registration by the electoral commission due to rule violations, leaving 523 candidates. Between 2 and 10 candidates applied for each constituency.
In addition, a total of 459 international election observers had been accredited by the election commission by October 31, 2019.
Election result
On November 18, 2019, the electoral commission of Belarus announced the results. Of the 110 elected MPs, 89 were non-party and 21 were members of political parties. These 21 seats were distributed among the parties as follows: Communist Party 11, RPTS 6, Patriots 2, Liberal Democrats 1, Agrarian Party 1. 30 elected MPs had already been MPs in the previous legislature. In terms of political orientation, all 110 elected MPs were counted among the supporters of President Lukashenka's regime. The opposition did not get a single seat in parliament.
evaluation
While Belarusian government officials and representatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States praised the election as “competitive and open”, representatives of the opposition described the election as not meeting democratic standards. At a press conference in Minsk on November 18, 2019, Aleh Hulak from the Byelorussian Helsinki Committee and Uladzimir Labkovich from the Vyazna Human Rights Center (Вясна, "spring") criticized the opposition for the establishment of election commissions in the run-up to the election at all levels (Rajone, Districts and constituencies) was severely underrepresented. For example, only 2.8% of the district commissioners belonged to the opposition. The great majority of the people involved in carrying out the election are government employees, whose behavior is closely monitored by the state organs and who, even in the case of serious violations, are presumed not to raise any objections. When candidates were admitted to the election, more opposition candidates than government supporters were rejected and around 71 percent of the signature collections were not verified by independent observers. In the election campaign, the opposition candidates were limited by the fact that critical remarks could lead to disqualification. For example, a candidate was disqualified because of his statement that there was "no future with Lukashenka" in Belarus. Many voters were brought under pressure and implicit threats to cast their votes prematurely. The official voter turnout also did not agree with the random sample observations at individual polling stations. The same and other points of criticism could be read in a preliminary report by the OSCE observer mission. A Belarusian government spokesman regretted the OSCE statement and called it "as in previous years" "politicized", "personally biased" and "subjective".
Individual evidence
- ↑ CEC (party affiliations)
- ↑ CEC (votes) ; the results are broken down by oblast
- ↑ a b Lukashenka Calls Belarus's Next Presidential Election For 2020 RFE / RL, April 19, 2019
- ↑ Belarus announces elections for 2019 and 2020. Courier, April 19, 2019, accessed October 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Указ Президента Республики Беларусь № 294 «О назначении выборов в Палату представителей Национального собрания Республики Беларусь " (Decree of the President of Belarus no. 294 "On the convening of elections to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus"). Pravo.by, accessed on November 5, 2019 (Belarusian).
- ^ Elections of Deputies of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 6, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Belarus' elections 2019: Turnout at 27.5% after four days of early voting. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 16, 2019, accessed on November 16, 2019 (English).
- ↑ belaruspartisan.by (Russian)
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: 65.5% of candidates standing in Belarus parliamentary elections affiliated with political parties. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), October 18, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019 .
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Belarus' CEC: 523 candidates are in the election race. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 6, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Over 450 CIS observers accredited to monitor parliamentary elections in Belarus. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 1, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Party members make up 19.1% of Belarus' new parliament. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 18, 2019, accessed on November 18, 2019 (English).
- ^ No more opposition in the Minsk parliament. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 18, 2019, accessed on November 18, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Elections in Belarus hailed as competitive, open. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 18, 2019, accessed on November 18, 2019 (English).
- ^ Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections. elections2019.spring96.org, accessed November 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Early parliamentary elections, November 17, 2019. OSCE, accessed November 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Belarus parliament elections: Belarus MFA regrets OSCE assessment, sees it as politicized. www.belarus.by (official website of the government of Belarus), November 19, 2019, accessed on November 19, 2019 (English).
.svg)