Yarmoshyna: “Electoral campaign will be held in traditional way”

A draft decree on appointing the date for “parliamentary” elections was introduced to Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Head of the Central Election Commission Lidziya Yarmoshyna said it. According to her, “the coming electoral campaign will be held in a traditional way, no special novelties are expected.”

The draft suggests the possible date of the “parliamentary” elections – 28 September, BelTA reports.

Yarmoshyna also said two more draft documents, namely a decree on scheduling “elections” to the Council of the Republic and a decree on Central Election Commission members with advisory vote rights, have been sent for consideration as well. The latter concerns representatives of political parties, running in elections.

The first stage of the elections will be setting up constituency election commissions. Their number should be equal to the number of members of the “parliament”— 110. The average number of electors per constituency is estimated at 64,042. After that candidates for deputy seats will be nominated. According to the acting law, there are three ways of nomination: a candidate can be a representative of a specific labour collective, a political party, and any Belarusian citizen above 21 years old, who has collected one thousand signatures in his or her support.

According to Yarmoshyna, the “parliamentary” elections will be accompanied by an extensive international monitoring. The number of observers will be defined by the international organisations they represent. The accreditation of foreign observers will be carried out by the Central Election Commission on the basis of invitation for observation and necessary applications.

According to the CEC head, the Central Election Commission will have a session after the date for the “parliamentary” elections will be scheduled. According to cost estimates, Br24.6 billion will be spent for the electoral campaign.