RPT: OSCE Absence Does Not Annul Presidential Election In Belarus - German Lawmaker

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th September, 2020) The fact that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) did not send observers to monitor the August 9 presidential election in Belarus does not make the vote illegitimate, Waldemar Herdt, a member of the German parliament's committee on foreign affairs from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik.

Earlier in the day, the European Parliament refused to recognize Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as the winner and regard him as president beyond his current term, which ends in November. The legislative body said the election was conducted in violation of international standards and named the absence of an OSCE monitoring mission as one of the failures of the country's electoral process.

"Belarus invited the OSCE to observe elections, but the OSCE refused ... I therefore consider the absence of election observers to be an extremely shaky argument," Herdt said.

He went on to question the practice of using sanctions as diplomatic leverage.

"As practice shows, sanctions always hit the wrong people. I think that sanctions will have a rather negative impact on further developments in Belarus," Herdt added.

Belarus has been gripped by protests since the presidential election, as a result of which President Alexander Lukashenko was elected for his sixth consecutive term. The opposition did not recognize the results, claiming that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was the true winner.