Half Opposition Candidates from Minsk Denied Registration :: Charter'97 :: News

January 30 was the last registration date for candidates into the deputies. In Minsk they examined applications of nominees from 44 electoral constituencies out of the total 55. For the time being we don’t have full data. However, the tendency, observed two days ago when half opposition members failed to pass registration, seems to remain alive.

In particular, they denied registration to the head of the unregistered Belarusian Freedom Party Syarzhouk Vysotsky. Commission members claim that he purposefully didn’t mention his garage in his income declaration form. However, the candidate himself said that it belongs to his parents and not him.

Nor did they register as candidate deputy BPF chairman Yuri Khodyko. In an interview to Radio Svaboda professor said the following concerning the commission’s members:

- They compromise even more the bad legislation, which we have right now. So what can we do? Their decision surely contradicts the spirit of the law. It had been once introduced in order to reveal real violators. And so they revealed me. I can’t say anything in my defense. I was paid 24thsd for a review, ordered in late 2001. In January 2002 I finished it, getting 24thsd payment, which is half percent of my annual salary.

By the way, improperly filled income and tax declarations were popular grounds for registration refusals.