Dmitriy Kobitskiy Met with Chairs of Russian and Belarusian CEC

Meetings of Secretary General of the Council of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly Dmitriy Kobitskiy, Chair of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Ella Pamfilova and Chair of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Belarus Igor Karpenko were held in the Tavricheskiy Palace. They were organized on the sidelines of the research-to-practice conference dedicated to the 30^th Anniversary of the Electoral System of the Russian Federation.

Ella Pamfilova expressed gratitude to the IPA CIS for its support in organizing the conference of the CEC of Russia. Then, Dmitriy Kobitskiy highlighted the long-term cooperation with the CEC on a number of the IPA CIS projects including the drafting of the Convention on Standards of Democratic Election, Electoral Rights and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the 20^th anniversary of which was celebrated last year.

The sides exchanged welcoming speeches and discussed cooperation in the main areas of activity, particularly in preparation for the Presidential elections of the Russian Federation to be held in March 2024. The wide prospects of using remote electronic voting, being successfully introduced in Russia, were noted.

The delegation of the CEC of the Republic of Belarus was represented at the meeting by its members Alexandr Losyakin and Sergei Shmarlovski. Deputy Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council – Plenipotentiary Representative of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus Viktor Kogut and Director of the International Institute for Monitoring Democracy Development, Parliamentarianism and Suffrage Protection of Citizens of the IPA CIS Member Nations (IPA CIS IIMDD) Ivan Mushket attended the meeting.

Igor Karpenko informed about the preparations for the election of deputies on the single voting day on 25 February 2024. A certain topic of the conversation was the issues of openness of the electoral system of the Republic of Belarus during the single voting day.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy told about the experience of the monitoring group's observation of elections and referenda of the CIS countries, and also noted the importance of cooperation between the CEC of the Republic of Belarus and the IPA CIS in the electoral sphere.