REPUBLIC OF BELARUS
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 9 SEPTEMBER 2001
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Source: Belarus government news agency website


NATIONAL SUMMARY
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Candidate                  Votes       %
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Segej Gaydukevich            152,580   02.5
Vladimir Goncharik           946,856   15.4
Alyaksandr LUKASHENKA      4,652,453   75.6
Invalid                      400,521   06.5
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Total                      6,152,410
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The Belarus presidential election was jointly monitored by the 
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the
Council of Europe.

The monitoring group reported:
 
"There were fundamental flaws in the electoral process, some of 
which are specific to the political situation in Belarus, 
including:
* A political regime that is not accustomed to and does everything 
in its power to block the opposition;
* Executive structures with extensive powers, including rule by 
presidential decree, that are not balanced with commensurate 
legislative controls, and that allow the arbitrary changing of the 
electoral environment;
* A legislative framework that still fails to ensure the 
independence of election administration bodies, the integrity of 
the voting results tabulation process, free and fair campaign 
conditions, and imposes excessive restrictions for campaigning and 
observers;
* The legal provisions for early voting do not guarantee the 
proper control and counting of early votes;
* An election administration system that is overly dependent on 
the executive branch of government from the national to the local 
community levels, and is partial;
* A campaign environment seriously to the disadvantage of the 
opposition candidates;
* A campaign of intimidation directed against opposition 
activists, domestic observation organizations, opposition and 
independent media, and a smear campaign against international 
observers; and
* Highly biased State-controlled media and censorship against the 
independent print media.

On the basis of these observations and without taking into account 
the outcome of the election, the [group] concludes:

The 2001 presidential election process failed to meet the OSCE 
commitments for democratic elections formulated in the 1990 
Copenhagen Document and the Council of Europe standards.