Mikalai Dziamidzienka: an attempt to take part in the ”elections” is an attempt to legalize the “elections”

During the press-conference held in Minsk on 20 September, deputy chairperson of the Malady Front (Youth Front) Mikalai Dziamidzienka said that “what’s happening in Belarus is a crime, not elections”.

“Right now ballots are thrown in the boxes, people are forced to vote – this is a crime. And an attempt to take part in the elections is an attempt to legalize the elections. A person who is a deputy candidate and whose name remains in ballots during the voting is an accomplice,” Dziamidzienka said, cited by BelaPAN.

He emphasized that not a single youth organization that had joined the boycott of the elections changed its position. “The entire procedure of signature gathering, nomination of candidates, agitation shows that this theatrical performance is nothing like free and democratic elections,” Dziamidzienka said.

The deputy chairperson of the Malady Front pointed to the fact that during the entire election campaign dozens of young men and activists of the boycott campaign have been detained on fake causes and convicted to administrative arrest. “Paval Vinagradau from the youth wing of the campaign Tell The Truth would have joined our press-conference had he not been kept in the Isolation Center for Criminals of the Central interior department of the Minsk municipal executive committee,” Dziamidzienka said. “Once again we emphasize that presently the most dangerous opponents of the powers are behind the bars and cannot take part in the country’s political life. So we call upon the Belarusian youth and all other citizens to join the boycott campaign right now, and not to go to the voting stations – neither during the pre-term voting, nor on the elections day on 23 September,” Dziamidzienka said.