Secretary General of the Council of Europe: “Lukashenka never loses opportunity to lose opportunity”

• 30.09.2008, 15:51

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis called the elections of September 28 a lost chance for Belarus. Lukashenka never loses opportunity to lose opportunity. It was a hope that the recent “elections” would be a turning point in voluntary isolation of Belarus from the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, Mr Davis said about the “elections”.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was unable to observe the voting, but the OSCE observers concluded that the elections fell short of European standards. Terry Davis said that as a friend of Belarusian people, he was deeply disappointed but still hoped the Belarusians would soon be able to take part in really free and fair voting.

It should be reminded that the OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring mission didn’t recognise the “parliamentary elections” in Belarus free and democratic. OSCE observers noted “bad or very bad” process of vote counting in 50 per cent of the cases. 40 per cent of the observers weren’t able to monitor the vote counting in full. The elections ultimately fell short of OSCE standards.