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Europa wil opheldering van Belarus
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de redactie
14 september 2009 | ScienceGuide-columnist Pieter Omtzigt heeft als CDA-Kamerlid in de Raad van Europa scherpe vragen gesteld over de jongste uitingen van manipulatie en onderdrukking door president Loeksjanko.
In an interview to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, presidentLukashenko of Belarus publicly admits that he manipulated theelections: he lowered the number of votes in het 2006 presidentialelections. (Izvestia newspaper on August 27 2009)
Many observers stated that those elections were not free andfair and now the president himself admits to vote rigging. (thoughthe observers think the vote rigging probably went the otherway)
The council of Europe should therefore take action and ask theBelarus authorities to publish all relevant documents of theseelections: the actual results, the published results and theexecutive orders to change the outcome of the elections.
To achieve this, I put forward written questions to thecommittee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which consists ofthe 47 Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of theCouncil of Europe.
Pieter Omtzigt Christian Democratic MP in the Dutch parliament, Substitute Memberof the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Written question to the committee of ministers of theCouncil of Europe
President Lukashenko of Belarus stated publicly that he orderedthe manipulation of the final outcome of the presidential electionin his country in 2006. He did this for “psychological reasons”.(source: interview with president Lukashenko in Russia’s Izvestianewspaper on August 27, 2009)
President Lukashenko now revealed that the original outcome wasa victory of his candidacy with 93% of votes cast and that heordered to reduce his margin of victory substantially.
Elections should be free and fair and the counting process andpublication of results should be fully transparent. The centralelectoral committee should verify and officially validate the finaloutcome of the presidential election.
The Council of Europe has opened a dialogue with the Belarusauthorities. In this dialogue, the Council of Europe should upholdthe values of democracy and the rule of law.
Therefore I would like to pose the following questions to thecommittee of ministers:
Will the committee of ministers of the council of Europe askits chairman to raise the unclarity surrounding the outcome of the2006 presidential elections in Belarus and ask the Belarusauthorities to publish the formal documentation concerning thefinal result of the counting of the votes in these elections andthe officially validated outcome by the Central Election Commissionof the Republic of Belarus? Will you ask the Belarus authorities togive the election result of each province both before and after thedecision making process?
Will you ask the president of Belarus to publish thedocumentation concerning the decision making process on the finalelectoral outcome and the officially validated result of the 2006presidential elections?
Will you send all the requested documents to the parliamentaryassembly within three months?
What is the opinion of the comittee of ministers on thecomments by president Lukashenko concerning his own interventionfor his re-election?
With these documents in hand, do you accept the integrity ofthe final outcome of the 2006 presidential election and do youconsider the published result as a valid result and reflection ofthe free will of the Belarus people?
