What was that? :: Charter'97 :: News

Local elections in Belarus were held on March 2. The Central Electoral Commission reports that in total 72,96% of voters cast their votes. Did any of you, who is reading these lines right now, engage in the yesterday’s ballot? However, it is in no wise the first case when the regime adds extra figures to the turnout. Several days ago, for instance, they announced that 20,7% of electorate voted beforehand. That figure even exceeded the 2001 presidential race statistics, when “only” 14% had been said to vote ahead of time. Under international standards, the elections can’t be regarded as democratic given the early voting exceeded three percent.

In the regions CEC “observed” the following turnout: Mogilev region – 76,89%, Grodno region – 76,80%, Brest region – 76,22%, Minsk – 74,75%, Gomel – 72,53%, Minsk City – 60,15%.

In total, around 7 million citizens are of the voting age and have legal right to cast votes in Belarus. 26,5 thousand candidates competed for 24,010 vacant seats in the local councils.

In most countryside voting constituencies the elections presented no alternative to the main candidate. The average competition level there constituted 1,1 candidates per seat. In Minsk, however, 3 candidates in average were struggling to get each of the 55 deputies’ mandates.

Political parties nominated 700 of their members as candidates. This “drop in the sea” immediately defined the looming defeat of political parties in the campaign. Any ideas about the common bloc were kept in oblivion since last fall.

However, even if all party candidates had been given places in local councils, this wouldn’t really change the overall impression. They wouldn’t be noticed in the huge mass of others. One should also bear in mind, that most of these candidates represented loyal parties such as LDPB and Communist Party, whereas the genuinely democratic parties encountered strong resistance and may hope to win, but a few mandates.

Disbelief in the local council’s authority, disunity in parties’ ranks, which never really manage to make the electorate believe in themselves – all this contributed to the voters’ unwillingness to cast their votes. And figures, pronounced by CEC, just sound ridiculous in light of that.