Answering the question why upon the completion of elections and the referendum in Belarus, the CIS and OSCE missions came to practically opposite conclusions on their holding, Vladimir Rushailo told RIA Novosti that "CIS observers assessed the preparation and the course of elections but not their results."
"The task to our observers was set in the following way: the opening of the polling station, a control probe during the day and the closing. As far as I remember, our colleagues from the OSCE worked in the same mode. We don't want to work in the mode of counteraction despite the fact that they and we have different assessments. We need to understand each other. Because mutual understanding will make our views closer," believes Mr. Rushailo.
He stressed that during the observation of the preparation and holding of the elections and the referendum, "except for minor technical slips, neither we nor our colleagues detected any violations."
"It looks as if we see the same but make different conclusions," said the executive secretary.
"We specially examined the issue, whether there were complaints, whether this was registered in the protocol or not. For the whole time, we found a protocol about a violation only at one station - the ballot box was in the wrong place. If everything had been the way Western observers claim it was, we would see heaps of violation protocols. We were in the same places, sometimes even at the same time," said Mr. Rushailo.
Mr. Rushailo supposed that in case of a "bad" turnout of voters or their negative answer to the referendum's question about the possibility for Mr. Lukashenko to be elected for a third term, Western observers' assessments would be vice versa.
Answering the question about the possible "subjective" assessment by the West of the coming presidential elections in Ukraine, Mr. Rushailo supposed that only in case Viktor Yushchenko won, the West would applaud the elections.
"We will register everything in Ukraine as well objectively and without bias, as we did it in Kazakhstan and Belarus," Mr. Rushailo said, emphasizing once again that "CIS observers assess not the results of the elections but the observance of norms during their preparation and holding."
