Head of the Belarusian parliamentary delegation to the OSCE PA Andrei Savinykh emphasized in his speech at the joint meeting of the three general committees of the OSCE PA in Vienna that the decision of Belarus not to invite international observers from the OSCE ODIHR and the OSCE PA to the parliamentary elections was well thought out and justified by a number of circumstances:
1. The countries of the collective West have imposed illegal economic sanctions against the Republic of Belarus aimed at worsening the welfare of Belarusian citizens.
2. The countries of the collective West have imposed illegal political sanctions against the members of the Central Election Commission, which prevents equal and impartial interaction with observers from these countries.
3. Poland has put all Belarusian parliamentarians on the Schengen restriction lists, which means a de facto ban on the participation of Belarusian representatives in election observation in the EU countries. And we already have the first precedent of denying entry to Poland to a Belarusian MP included in the OSCE PA mission in October 2023.
4. All our initiatives to develop transparent, clear and objective criteria for election observation and assessment have been blocked and rejected.
5. All demands for the elimination of geographical and functional distortions in election observation to the East and West of Vienna, including the arbitrary and unreasonable choice of election observation format and number of observers, have been completely ignored and not addressed.
6. Political trends in the West lead us to question the maintenance of democratic standards in the countries of the collective West. Rather, we can reasonably speak about the construction of a system of "defective democracy" or "showcracy" and the transformation of Western countries into countries of "post-democracy", as described by academic researchers from universities in the UK, France and the USA.
All these trends, according to the parliamentarian, raise doubts not only about the objectivity and impartiality of the OSCE observers, but also about their ability to honestly assess the level and content of real people's power in any country.
"We will be ready to reconsider this decision if the countries of the collective West refuse to reject the trends I have outlined," said the head of the Belarusian parliamentary delegation.
At the same time, Belarus remains open for objective international observation through the OSCE participating states from the CIS countries, the CSTO, the Union State of Belarus and Russia, as well as our partners in the SCO, he added.
"We strongly reject all far-fetched accusations that we have violated our political commitments. More than 90% of the invited international observers, who right now are working in Belarus to observe the elections, came to us from the OSCE participating States. And these are not only representatives of the CIS countries, but also citizens of Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, France, Sweden, Switzerland. All of them are distinguished by the fact that, having high professional training in the organization of elections, they use their role of observers to improve the electoral process in Belarus, rather than as a means of political pressure or slander," concluded Andrei Savinykh.
