MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Russia and Belarus invited the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to develop standards for conducting elections, but the organization refused to, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev.
"Russia and we invited the OSCE to work out the standards - but they don’t want to," the Belarusian leader said as quoted by the BelTA news agency.
In turn, Lebedev, who headed the CIS observers mission at the presidential election in Belarus, confirmed Lukashenko's words and added that he himself took part in this work.
"They want to impose their own rules on us, but there is a law. The election was held in Belarus in accordance with the law, was competitive and public," Lebedev said.
Belarus held a presidential election on August 9. According to preliminary data from the country’s Central Election Commission, Lukashenko received 80.23% of the vote, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya garnered 9.9% and the other three presidential candidates gained less than 2%. Protests erupted in Minsk and other regions of the country following the presidential vote, leading to clashes between protesters and law enforcement forces. According to the Belarusian Interior Ministry, about 3,000 people were detained during protests while dozens of police officers and demonstrators suffered injuries.