Press releases

2012 Belarus Parliamentary Elections

Timing of the elections

On 18 June 2012 President of Belarus signed the decrees concerning the timing of the parliamentary elections. The elections to the House of Representatives will be held on 23 September 2012; the elections to the Council of the Republic are scheduled for 30 June - 30 September 2012.

The parliamentary election campaign will be held 14 through 23 August inclusive.

2012 Parliamentary Elections: news

Elections of Deputies of the House of Representatives, in detail.

Election commissions

6, 301 precinct election commissions composed of 68, 945 people were set up.

District election commissions received 597 sets of documents from potential parliamentary candidates. Parliamentary candidates are nominated by political parties, labor collectives and by signature collection.

Nomination of candidates concluded on 13 August 2012

265 parliamentary candidates were nominated by political parties:

The Belarusian United Left Party Fair World nominated 32 people, or 5.4% of all parliamentary candidates;
The Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Gramada) – 15, or 2.5%;
The Belarusian Socialist Sporting Party – 1, or 0.2%;
The Communist Party of Belarus – 23, or 3.9%;
The Liberal Democratic Party – 93, or 15.6%;
The United Civic Party –  48, or 8%;
The Belarusian Popular Front – 34, or 5.7%;
The Republican Party of Labor and Justice - 19, or 3.3%.

The territorial structure of nominations looks the following way:

68 candidates for 16 districts  were nominated in Brest Oblast;
61 candidates for 14 districts in Vitebsk Oblast;
68 candidates for 17 districts in Gomel Oblast;
42 candidates for 13 districts in Grodno Oblast;
67 candidates for 17 districts in Minsk Oblast;
56 candidates for 13 districts in Mogilev Oblast;
132 candidates for 20 districts in Minsk.

Election debate

Candidates to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the fifth convocation will be able to make their media appearances starting from 27 August between 19:00 and 20:00 on TV, between 18:00 and 19:00 on radio.

Observation missions

The CIS observation mission started working in Belarus on 25 July. The mission is led by Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee - CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev. The mission is to include over 30 long-term and 300-350 short-term observers.

Long-term observers of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR) will start arriving in Belarus on 24 August. The mission will be composed of 40 long-term observers and 270 short-term observers. The mission will be led by Antonio Milososki of Macedonia.