Election campaigns have long ceased to be a technical procedure, recently turning into a true battlefield, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he met with the heads of the CIS election bodies on 19 September, BelTA has learned.
“Given my rich experience of leading the country, I remember the times when the bodies you head were set up. I will say frankly: this is a good, positive product of democracy and democratization of our society of the times. We long debated the necessity of election commissions. We studied the experience of other countries, where, for example, the Internal Affairs Ministry can control, organize and make a relevant conclusion on elections. Following the democratic way, however, we set up our election commissions, the vertical from the central one to the corresponding districts, constituencies and so on. I must say that this is one of those cases when we have not made a mistake,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The CIS countries, however, could not have imagined at that time that the activities of electoral bodies and their area of responsibility would become a battlefield, the president said. “You often have to fight. Thank God, you are not doing it alone,” the head of state added.
The CIS Advisory Council of Heads of Electoral Bodies has been established quite recently, Aleksandr Lukashenko said. According to him, this shows how much importance the CIS countries attach to the organization of elections and referendums, improvement of electoral legislation.
“Election campaigns have long ceased to be a technical procedure. This has already become a true battlefield in the pre-election and election periods, where the main actor is the bodies of the Central Election Commission,” the president said.
In his words, today elections have become one of the main political events in the life of any country. At the same time, Aleksandr Lukashenko believes that it should be an ordinary political process, which should not be given too much importance.
“High-quality preparation of elections, transparency and honesty guarantee the maintenance of political stability, preservation of peace and order in society. During this period every your word is taken very seriously, and our peoples are used to believing in what the heads of the Central Election Commissions and his subordinate structures say,” the head of state added.
Aleksandr Lukashenko added that the opponents of the authorities always try to use the election period in their own interests, often even with the help of revolutionary and rebellious methods.
“All of us have faced such tests, including Belarus in 2020. We have always sincerely and honestly recognized that it happens not only because of external pressure. There are internal reasons. We know these reasons. We have clearly identified them and made appropriate conclusions. We have learned lessons from those events so that they would not happen again,” the president said.
Large-scale changes in legislation came as part of the undertaken measures. The “electoral sovereignty” term was enshrined in the National Security Concept of Belarus. It means the protection of national interests, the inalienable right of the state to hold elections and referendums regardless of pressure from the outside.
“We are ready to discuss with our friends, partners, first of all with the CIS countries, the developments of our legislation, security of the electoral process. It is important that we have such an international platform as our council, which has become a place of effective interaction ahead of election campaigns, and in life in general as your practice shows. I have repeatedly said that we need to act together, work out common principles of our central commissions, develop laws, by-laws and joint practice,” the Belarusian leader added.