MINSK, 20 November (BelTA) – Accreditation of domestic observers will close on 20 January 2025, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Igor Karpenko told reporters at the CEC meeting, BelTA has learned.
Territorial commissions have accredited 800 domestic observers. “About 45,000 domestic observers monitored the single voting day. It would be wrong to think that the number of observers dropped dramatically compared to the previous election campaign. The thing is that we have not yet formed precinct election commissions, the number of which will exceed 5,000. And, as a rule, each commission has observers. Therefore, the above-mentioned number of observers has to do only with territorial commissions: 153 commissions have been formed, and 800 domestic observers have been accredited by these commissions by now,” said Igor Karpenko.
The accreditation of domestic observers continues. A political party, a public association, a labor collective of an organization or its branch, as well as citizens have the right to delegate one observer to attend meetings of a respective election commission, and monitor the presidential election at a polling station.
“We collect this information once a week as we do not want to place an additional burden on commissions. We get updates once a week, so the number of domestic observers will grow. Moreover, there are quite a lot of entities that are entitled by the law to send their observers to one or another commission. I will emphasize that these entities must use this right: their observers must be accredited by a relevant commission before the day of early voting,” the CEC chief added.
Early voting in the presidential election will begin on 21 January 2025. The main voting day is 26 January 2025.
