DUSHANBE, March 1, 2010, Asia-Plus — Parliamentary elections in Tajikistan were democratic, transparent and free, the CIS Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev, who headed the CIS election observation mission for the February 28 parliamentary election in Tajikistan, announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on March 1.
He noted that 536 international and more than 25,000 local observers had monitored the voting process.
“Our observers have recorded separate violations of the voting procedure; however, the elections were held at quite a high level,” said Lebedev, “A number of attempts of the so-called ‘family voting’ (when one family member casts ballots on behalf of the entire family) have been recorded. This kind of violations is typical for practically all the CIS member nations. Besides, there were cases, when voters were filling in ballot papers outside polling booths or when members of one family entered polling booths simultaneously.”
According to him, these violations were not mass and they did not affect the elections results. “Organizers of the elections ensured protection and realization of voting rights of citizens in accordance with the national legislation,” Lebedev said.
