BHC Alarmed Over Candidates’ Registration Procedure Faults :: Charter'97 :: News

Brest regional affiliate of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee rings alarm bells in connection with problems, occurring in course of the registration of candidates and printing of flyers by already registered nominees for the local councils.

BHC cites a vivid example of the Brest regional electoral commission and regional court, which declined to uphold Oleg Novik’s complaint, when he tried to get registered as candidate from the Gantsevichi district council. They denied him registration, motivating the refusal by saying that the presented income information didn’t coincide with the one, submitted to the tax inspection by the local authorities.

Regional BHC affiliate is likewise concerned with the fact that the Brest regional publishing house refused to publish pre-election posters for 17 candidates into the deputies from the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada). The poster of each of the candidates, apart from his own photo, CV and program, also contained information on other BSDP (NG) runners for the seats, which was the main motivation behind the refusal.

“Such allocation of information in the pre-election posters does not contradict Electoral code,” – assumes Igor Maslovsky: “The folks simply wanted to show that they run as one team. During the second round of parliamentary voting in 2001, the social-democrats printed the same type of posters”.