Major problems include strict limitations on political activity which effectively prevent real campaigning from taking place and the lack of a provision for multi-party representation on election commissions, which is so vital for impartiality and public confidence in the electoral process. Democratic legitimacy only can be restored through free and fair elections in which all citizens and candidates can participate on an equal basis and by restoring the necessary checks and balances among the branches of government. It instead must produce real results, including agreement on an electoral code that meets OSCE standards and provides an internationally acceptable framework for legitimate, free and fair parliamentary elections. Otherwise, the U.S. and other democracies will find it very difficult if not impossible to recognize the parliamentary elections planned for later this year as legitimate, and Belarus will not resolve its political and constitutional crisis or end its self-imposed isolation. The second core element is civil society.
Democracy means far more than just holding elections or referenda.
The slow development of democracy in some states has demonstrated that elections must be regarded not as an end in themselves, but as the means to establish a political system that fosters the growth and satisfaction of its citizens by promoting and protecting their political and civil rights. In Belarus, those who have chosen to participate in civil society by speaking truth to power have done so at great risk to their freedom, and even their lives. Others, such as Semyon Sharetsky and Zenon Poznyak, also have fled abroad out of fear for their safety. Taken together, this series of disappearances, arrests, and exiles has greatly exacerbated the climate of fear that exists in Belarus and made clear that citizens expressing opposition to the government are in great peril. The Lukashenko regime also has sought to repress civil society by restricting other fundamental freedoms such as freedom of assembly and of association.