Will OSCE and CIS reports differ after Belarus elections?

"[Belarus' foreign minister] Sergei Martynov signed an official letter to CIS and OSCE, inviting them to send observers to the presidential elections. Belarus sets no limitations for their quantity and duration of stay", Belarus foreign ministry's spokesman Andrei Savinykh told reporters on September 16.

OSCE/ODIHR sokesman Jens Eschenbaecher confirmed on Thursday the receipt of the invitation. He expressed gratitude for an early invitation, since ODIHR would have enough time to get prepared for its monitoring mission.

"The next step is to send an evaluation mission to Belarus. It is yet to be known when this will be done. It depends on a range of factors. In autumn, we have a very busy schedule as elections will be held in several OSCE member states. The evaluation commission will make a general assessment and recommendations whether a monitoring mission should be sent and in which format".

Ahead of the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus, OSCE/ODIHR sent an evaluation mission five days after receiving an invitation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two weeks later, a OSCE/ODIHR mission was unfolded to monitor the electoral campaign.

Jens Eschenbaecher: "The number of observers will depend on the recommendations from the evaluation mission. The Office then will approach OSCE member states and thet will provide observers. 56 nations are members of OSCE, and similar elections are normally monitored by observes from 40 countries".

On the 2006 election day, the 546-strong international monitoring mission from 38 OSCE member states, almost 100 represented the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. This assembly has not yet received an invitation from the Belarusian parliament. "Some countries send a separate invitation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, some do not. We have not received an invitation from the Belarusian parliament yet. But, usually, when OSCE/ODIHR is invited, it automatically means an invitation to the Parliamentary Assembly", said the press office of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

After receiving an invitation, CIS Executive Committee will send letters to CIS member states, requesting to provide their observers, says Yauhen Slabada, chairman of CIS Monitoring Mission headquarters: 

"Then, we invite the Parliamentary Assembly of Belarus and Russia, the Interparliamentary Assembly and they determine the quantity of people".

During the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus, 467 people were accredited as observers from CIS, representing Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

ERB asked why the evaluations of elections by CIS and OSCE monitoring missions differed greatly. For instance, OSCE's report pointed to significant flaws and that democratic standards were not met. CIS assessed the elections as free and fair.

"I don't know. I cannot say for OSCE, but the reports of CIS monitoring mission and coordinators' council were utterly objective, in our opinion", said Yauhen Slabada

The same question was posed to Jens Eschenbaecher. He said: "You should ask CIS obsevers why their reports differ so much. Talking about OSCE standards, I should say that all OSCE member states approved a detailed methodology which is used to monitor elections. They also approved a methodology to see if these standards are applied in practice. All 56 OSCE member states agreed to election standards that were outlined in the so called 1990 Copenhagen agreement. These standards apply to all OSCE member states and they were tested during election campaigns across the whole OSCE region".

Photo depicting OSCE/ODIHR