Parties Desperate to Divide Constituencies in Minsk :: Charter'97 :: News

In Minsk, where they will elect 55 deputies of the city council, there are constituencies, such as, say, Slobodskaya, where they already registered 12 initiative groups of candidates. And there’s also the Malinovka district with only two such groups. Although the political parties can nominate their candidates under the Electoral code until January 20, one can barely count on serious changes. Nominees from opposition parties, except the Liberal-Democratic one, have already registered their initiative groups and presently operate in concrete constituencies.

Ahead of the electoral campaign the leaders of the political parties spoke a lot about the necessity to coordinate their actions, the new configuration of coalition and mutual concessions. How do they view the situation now?

Speaking is deputy chairman of the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party Vladimir Nistuk:

- There’s no common coordination center, which would watch over all constituencies. We simply agreed not to interfere with one another. Our party reached an agreement with Kalyakin’s communists, Bukhvostov’s labor party and even Gaidukevich that they would nominate their candidates and then withdraw them in all districts, which we agree on. However, there had been reached no agreement on covering all 55 voting constituencies.