CIS First Deputy Secretary General: West seeks to maintain control over international election observation

Election observation and evaluation of their results are now becoming instruments of political pressure on particular countries from a range of international organisations – as stated by CIS First Deputy Secretary General Leonid Anfimov at a plenary session of the international scientific and practical conference, held today at Minsk’s National Library and dedicated to international standards of the electoral process

In order to preserve the possibility of influencing political processes in the CIS member states, the West seeks to retain the ability to control international election observation. Moreover, the states in which election campaigns are conducted are divided into two categories. For some, assessments of the conduct of elections are a priori positive. Under all conditions, their election campaigns are recognised as meeting international democratic standards. Others are evaluated depending on the political outcome of the elections.

According to Leonid Anfimov, there is at least a policy of double standards.

“It is clear that such a practice is unacceptable for us when certain expert recommendations – developed behind the scenes and approved by individual international organisations – are the basis for evaluating elections. We proceed from the fact that approaches to election observation should be unified, as specific and unambiguous as possible, not allowing their ambiguous interpretation. At the same time, the main goal of international observers should be to ensure conditions for citizens to freely and independently choose their future.”