Belarus holds parliamentary elections despite opposition boycott
时间：2012-09-25 01:55:24
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Belarus holds parliamentary elections despite opposition1 boycott2
MINSK, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Belarus held its parliamentary elections on Sunday without the participation3 of main opposition parties, and the country's Central Election Commission (CEC) declared the elections valid4 with voter turnout reaching 50 percent in the afternoon.
The two major opposition parties in the country -- the People's Front and the United Civil Party --
boycotted5 the Sunday vote, citing
detentions6 of political
activists7 and
alleged8 election fraud.
The Belarusian parliament's lower
chamber9, the House of Representatives, has 110 seats to be filled -- each representing one constituency in the country. On average, there are almost three candidates competing for every seat on offer.
Some 26 percent of registered voters took part in early voting of the parliamentary elections in the past five days, CEC Secretary Nikolai Lozovik said.
The elections were monitored by 762 foreign observers, mainly from the
Commonwealth10 of Independent States (CIS) and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The head of the CIS monitoring mission, Sergei Lebedev, said that the elections were held democratically.
"We suppose that the elections in Belarus were and are held quite democratically and openly. Besides, the course of the elections complies with national electoral legislation in Belarus, " he said.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the election process can be called faultless.
"I would like to
reiterate11: we are conducting elections today not for the West. The main hero at the elections in this country is the Belarusian people," said Lukashenko when asked about possible Western reactions toward the vote.
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