The expert group of the Belarusian Association of Journalists analysed the media during elections in Belarus and came to the conclusion that the subject of parliamentary elections does not get sufficient coverage in the media. “The election campaign itself and its coverage clearly display features of a general political stagnation which is sometimes defined as political stability”, analyst and member of the Board of BAJ Ales Antsipenka says.

CEC considers elections a local and small-scale event
According to the BAJ monitoring, state media, as usual, focus on the organizational and technical aspects of the electoral process. The main source of information for state media is the Central Election Commission (CEC) and district election commissions.

According to BAJ expert group, candidates’ speeches are not broadcast live, which allows to censor the speeches. In addition, the addresses of candidates on the TV are announced under the general heading “Elections 2012”, not focusing on who will speak and what party they represent.

The overall attitude of the authorities to the parliamentary election acounts for such meagre coverage of the campaign. This attitude can be exemplified by the way the CEC Chairman Lidzia Yarmoshyna assesses the nature of the parliamentary campaign:

“These are not presidential elections, when the candidates represent the country as a whole and evidently have quite different points of view. As for the current elections, the debates will primarily concern the local problems important for the voters of each electoral district. Therefore, it is possible that they will have small-scale character”, Chairman of the CEC said.

“I do not know whether Lidzia Yarmoshyna realized what she was saying. But her words mean that the parliamentary election is not a big nation-wide campaign, but a small-scale and local event, which is organised by the Central Election Commission”, Ales Antsipenka commented.

BAJ members not welcome in the Supervisory Board on media
On 5 September CEC member Ihar Lialkou proposed CEC to include a number of independent journalists into the Supervisory Board on monitoring of compliance with the order and rules of election campaigning in the media. The following candidatures were proposed by Lialkou: Head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Zhanna Litvina and her assistant Andrei Bastunets, as well as deputy editor of Nasha Niva newspaper Dzmitry Pankavets. At this point the Supervisory Board consists of 7 members – representatives of the state-owned print media and the National State TV and Radio Company.

However, Head of the BAJ Zhanna Litvina and her assistant Andrei Bastunets were not included into the Supervisory Board.

The first deputy editor of a state-owned newspaper SB – Belarus Today Mikhail Liabedzik said that the presence of Bastunets and Litvina in the Board was considered to be “unreasonable”: “Yes, this issue has been addressed. The decision is the following – negative. It’s unreasonable!”

However, Liabedzik said that it was beyond the competence of the Supervisory Board to take a final decision – they only made recommendations. In this case, the CEC consulted the members of the Board about the persons who were suggested to be included, and they expressed their negative attitude.

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