Uss has over 700 people in initiative group

Dzmitry Uss, a presidential candidate and prisoner of conscience, has announced the start of a campaign of collecting signatures to propose amendments to the Electoral Code.

The politicians says more than 700 people have already joined the initiative group, though under the law their number should be at least 100.

Uss is not going to stop here. He said in an interview to charter97.org that anyone can join the initiative group by middle January. He expects the group to have 2 or 3 thousand members, who will gather signatures for proposing amendments to electoral legislation.

We remind that under the Constitution the “house of representatives” can approve a draft law, if 50,000 people put their signatures for it. Signatures should be gathered within a month after the group’s registration.

Uss wants to amend three articles of the Electoral Code: 34, 35 and 72. He stands for giving candidates the right to send their delegates to district election commissions. The list of representatives should be sent to the agencies responsible for forming district election commissions 15 days prior the election. Candidate’s representatives should be handed certificates of commission members within three days.

Dzmitry Uss offers to give the right to members of the district election commission representing candidates to put their signatures on the back side of each ballot paper. In his view, these measures will help to avoid illegal ballot throw-in during early voting and fraud during the vote count.

Dzmitry Uss calls on everyone wanting to join the initiative group to phone 8-029-170-71-75. He hopes he will explain to people during the campaign that under the current legislation no election can be held in Belarus and holding elections without changes in laws is impossible.