COPENHAGEN, 2 December 2010 – Tony Lloyd, Member of the British Delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, has been appointed by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister and Secretary of State Kanat Saudabayev, as Special Co-ordinator of the OSCE Short-Term Observer Mission to the 19 December presidential election in Belarus.

Mr. Lloyd has also been appointed by Assembly President Petros Efthymiou to head the OSCE PA’s delegation. "I am very pleased to be in Belarus for this important election," Mr. Lloyd said, "and like everyone else I am hoping to witness a genuinely democratic election which allows the citizens of Belarus to have their say in the future of their country."

Tony Lloyd has long been active in the Parliamentary Assembly, serving on its Rules Committee as well as the Ad Hoc Committee on Transparency and Accountability in the OSCE.

OSCE PA Vice-President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will serve as Deputy Head of the OSCE PA’s election observation mission. Mr. Tokayev, a former Kazakh foreign minister, is Chairman of the Senate of Kazakhstan and heads the Kazakh Delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

In accordance with the Co-operation Agreement between the PA and the OSCE/ODIHR from 1997, Mr. Lloyd will lead the short-term observers and deliver the post-election statement on behalf of the OSCE in Minsk on 20 December.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly last observed elections in Belarus in September 2008, and expects to send more than 50 parliamentarians to observe the 19 December election.