OREANDA-NEWS. September 5, 2008. The pre-election environment in Belarus remains calm, reads an intermediate report of the OSCE ODIHR mission observing elections to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly in 2008.

Observers report that the situation in the country remains calm while interviewed officials expect the election process to be transparent and peaceful, says the report. According to the observers all the parties show readiness for cooperation. Election commissions on all levels keep to the terms established by the law. The system used to appoint election commissions has not been changed. State administration bodies are fully in charge of appointing members of constituency and polling station commissions.

Although the opposition representation in election commissions is inessential, the Belarusian government has mentioned the increased number of constituency commissions with opposition members on board as a step forward, says the report. Meanwhile, the report says there is a lack of independent mass media.

On July 9, 2008 the OSCE ODIHR was invited to monitor the forthcoming elections by Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergei Martynov. The invitation was made in time to allow the OSCE ODIHR to properly deploy the election monitoring mission, says the report. Led by Gert Arens, the mission consists of 15 members of the main expert group, which is located in Minsk, and 40 long-term observers distributed across provinces of Belarus. All in all, the mission represents 22 OSCE member-states. It will be the fifth time the OSCE ODIHR will monitor the parliamentary elections in Belarus according to its usual procedures.