lidia yermoshina, the chairperson of the central election commission, announced on 29 august that 276 candidates were registered for the election; 365 people initially sought to run, but five withdrew and candidate registration for 84 others was rejected. just prior to the election, the number of the registered candidates was reduced to 263; 82 of the candidates were members of political parties, the others were non-partisans loyal to the government. they included chief executives of local authorities and medical institutions, and top managers of large enterprises. the election was attempted to be monitored by 925 international and more than 17,000 local observers, including an organization for security and co-operation in europe (osce) mission consisting of some 450 members from 43 countries. belarusian citizens abroad were able to cast their votes at 40 polling stations located in 31 countries. advance voting occurred on september 23 through september 26 and was characterized by active participation: more than 26% of registered voters cast their ballots. voter turnout was reported to be 76.7%.