The stage of forming of circuit electoral commissions for election into the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus is over. Only 2,1% of the members of the commissions that are established by local administrations, belong to oppositional parties. The authorities openly ignored oppositional candidates for membership in the commissions.
Almost 52% of members of the commissions are women, a bit more than 16% were nominated by political parties and almost 31% — by public associations. Most of those who were nominated by political parties are members of Belarusian Liberal Democratic Party, Party of Communists of Belarus, Communist Party of Belarus and Social Sportive Party, all of which aew loyal to the authorities. From public associations there were included representatives of the official trade unions, Belarusian Republican Youth Union, the union of Afghanistan war veterans, Belarusian Red Cross and Belarusian association of veterans, all of which are controlled by the authorities. A considerable part of the members of electoral commissions were nominated by collection of signatures and by applications of working collectives.
Repersentatives of democratic political parties constitute 2,1% from the total number of members of circuit electoral commissions.
Belarusian People´s Front nominated 50 persons to circuit electoral commissions
United Civil Party — 61
Belarusian Social Democratic Party — 23
Party of Communists of Belarus — 78
Belarusian Labor Party — 26
Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Narodnaya Hramada) — 80.
Human Rights Center “Viasna” summed up the data on inclusion of representatives of democratic political parties into circuit electoral commissions. Only 30 persons out of 318 proposed to the commissions by democratic political parties were included, which is 9,4%. The total number of members of 110 circuit electoral commissions is 1430, representatives of democratic parties constitute only 2,1% of them. The head of Human Rights Center “Viasna” Ales Bialiatski is convinced that the election will be held in the same way the presidential election of 2001 and the election to local deputy soviets of 2003 were held, which means mass violations of the electoral legislations and falsifications.
The following stage of the electoral process leaves little hope for the better. For insntance, the Central Electoral Commission adopted new recommendations to circuit electoral commissions concerning registration of the inivitative groups of the persons who intend to run for the deputacy. These recommendations oblige circuit electoral commissions to check the citizenship of all members of initiative groups before registration of the latter ones. It means that passports of all members of initiative groups are to be brought to the commissions. However, Article 65 of the Electoral Code, that regulates the procedure of registration of initiative group and is the main electoral law, doesn’t contain such demands. It’s worth mentioning that registration of an initiative group lasts for 5 days and the minimal number of members, defined by the Electoral Code, is 10 persons.
These methodical recommendations can turn into one more way of bureaucratic protraction for registration of initiative groups of candidates (some of which can have even hundred members), when electoral commissions would demand to bring all passports. It’s also quite interesting that the initiative groups are established for taking signatures for a person who intends to become a candidate. It is necessary to collect the necessary number of correct signatures to become a candidate to deputy position. Usually, this is the way independent candidates and candidates of democratic parties are nominated, not official ones.
