Democratic Forces Unable to Control Vote Count At Polling Stations :: Charter'97 :: News

In Vitebsk and Brest representatives of “Narodnaya Gromada” refused to nominate their deputies into the district electoral commissions in protest against the regime’s arbitrary policy.

Chairman of the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party “Narodnaya Gromada” Nikolai Statkevich explained this extraordinary act to Radio Svaboda in the following way:
- In Vitebsk we nominated 11 candidates into the commissions and faced a demonstrative denial, though their applications were perfect. As a result, we have no people there. Our fellowmen don’t feel like wasting time in vain again, considering the situation too hopeless.
However, this isn’t the only reason why the democratic forces can’t control count of votes at the initial level. On January 13, the first day of the district commissions’ formation, it turned out that there are but a few candidates, representing opposition parties. Of course, nobody really harbored illusions that opposition would manage to penetrate into all 6,500 commissions. And so they made up their minds to concentrate only on those constituencies, where the party members will run for office. Seemingly, they fail to cope with this problem too.