MOSCOW, March 21 (RIA Novosti) - The biased verdict of the OSCE, Europe's main election monitoring organization, on the presidential election in Belarus highlights the need to improve the process of observing polls, an official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
"We believe that the biased nature of the verdict of the monitoring mission has again confirmed the importance of beginning, at last, focused work to correct shortcomings in the election monitoring practice," Mikhail Kamynin said referring to a decision made by foreign ministers of the 55-nation security grouping in December last year.
He expressed hope that the final report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the elections in Belarus "would be more balanced and unbiased."
According to Kamynin, "elections cannot be ideal and are held with certain imperfections and flaws in all countries."
He said the negative assessment by OSCE observers had been made by those who declared the Belarusian regime undemocratic.
OSCE observes said Sunday's presidential election in Belarus, which resulted in the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko for a third term in a landslide victory, failed to meet accepted democratic standards.
However, observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose association of former Soviet states, said the poll was "fair and open."
More than 500 OSCE monitors from 38 countries attended the elections and are expected to submit a final report in six to eight weeks.
Former collective farm boss Lukashenko, who Washington has dubbed the last dictator in Europe, romped home with 82.6% of the votes. Despite criticism in the West for authoritarian tendencies, Lukashenko is known to have support in his homeland for providing relative economic stability in comparison with other former Soviet states.
