On November 17, 2019, Belarus held parliamentary elections in which no opposition candidate won any seat. This allowed President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, to continue his rule.
Unlike the 2016 elections where two opposition members won seats for the first time in 20 years, neither of them was allowed to stand for office again this time around.
How Belarus Elections Work
The president is elected for a five-year term by the people, while the 110 Deputies of the National Assembly are elected for a four-year term in a first-past-the-post system. Here, each candidate must score more than half of the votes cast in their constituency. If no candidate gets up to half of the votes, run-off elections are held.
If things were as it should be in Belarus politics, the president should answer to the deputies in parliament. Unfortunately, President Lukashenko has effectively reduced the House of Representatives to a rubber stamp duties by limiting its powers to reject bills and prime ministers nominated by the president or to impeach the president himself.
The Election in Numbers
Eleven parties ran in the elections where the opposition failed to win a single seat. The United Civic Party, which had one seat in parliament, lost it this time around. Forty per cent of the elected deputies were female, 1.8% were under the age of 30 and 27.3%were members of the previous convocation of the House of Representatives.
Business as Usual
Speaking to Reuters, leading opposition figure Nikolai Statkevich said: “The (election) result has long been determined. The authorities selected approved candidates.”
A change of power in Belarus is not possible through elections and western monitoring agencies have criticised the absence of a level playing field and the lack of transparency, saying the election did not comply with democratic standards and was marred by curbs on fundamental freedoms and concerns over procedural integrity.
Since 1995, none of the elections that have held in Belarus has been judged free and fair by international observers. The European Union called the election a “lost opportunity” to conduct a fair vote and urged Minsk to carry out reforms ahead of the presidential election next year.
“Trust Me,”- President Lukashenko
Lukashenko, after announcing on Sunday that he will run again in the 2020 presidential elections, said the Belarusian people could vote him out of office next year if they no longer wanted him. “I have promised that I would not hang on to this seat until my fingers turn blue. Trust me, it’s not really the softest chair,” he told reporters.
