Parties and Elections in Europe

BELARUS

Legislative elections: House of Representatives, 4-year term, two-tiered single-member majority system

· President: Alexander Lukashenko · Prime Minister: Mikhail Vladimirovich Myasnikovich · Government: IND

Party		Ideology, Affiliation, Founding		2008	Seats	2004	Seats
	Kommunističeskaja Partija Belarusi (KPB) Communist Party of Belarus	Communism; Marxism-Leninism, Russian-Belarussian unionism	SKP 1996	-	6	-	8
	Agrarnaja Partija (AP) Agrarian Party	Agrarianism	- 1992	-	1	-	3
	Liberal'no-Demokratičeskaja Partija (LDP) Liberal-Democratic Party	Nationalism; Russian-Belarussian unionism	- 1994	-	-	-	1
Independents		-	-	-	103	-	98
Others		-	-	-	-	-	-
Total		-	-	-	110	-	110
Turnout				76,7%		90,1%

Note: The elections in Belarus failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections (OSCE Press release, 09.09.2008: "The election took place in a strictly controlled environment with a barely visible campaign. The media coverage of the campaign did not provide meaningful information for voters to be able to make an informed choice. Political parties played a minor role, and restrictions imposed by the state authorities did not allow for a vibrant campaign with real competition. The count was assessed as bad or very bad in 48 percent of polling stations visited. Where access was possible several cases of deliberate falsification of results were observed"). © 2008 Wolfram Nordsieck. Sources: OSCE (http://www.osce.org), Inter-Parliamentary Union (http://www.ipu.org). Archive: Elections 1995-2000.