European Coalition “Free Belarus” Declares Need Of All Democratic Forces Union :: Charter'97 :: News

On January 15 a meeting of the coordinating board of the European Coalition “Free Belarus” took place. Members of the committee discussed work of the coalition in the last months. It was underlined that the coalition managed to mobilize its activists to support the action “We remember” on December 10, on the International Day of Human Rights. As it had been planned, before Christmas and New Year about a million leaflets-congratulations from the European coalition and Belarusian Social Democratic Party “Narodnaya Hramada”. The latest opinion polls confirm that the coalition has made a right choice of its course of actions, and it has a response from the Belarusan people. It is planned to continue the campaign of informing about European values and about the work of the European coalition. Among the negative aspects it was stated that there is no understanding of all democratic forces of Belarus about uniting ahead of the important political events in the country. On account of that why the committee unanimously approved an address to the coalition 5+.

Members of the committee expressed serious concern over the future of the most popular independent newspapers the “BDG” and “Narodnaya Volya”, which are pressed harshly by the authorities and are under the threat of abolishment. The coordinating board expresses solidarity with journalists of these newspapers and demands to stop persecution of the independent mass media and threats to journalists.

Representatives of Homiel and Hrodna regions participated in the work at the meeting of the coordinating board.

Address of European coalition “Free Belarus” to People’s Coalition 5+

The year of parliamentary elections in Belarus started in a very difficult situation for the democratic forces. Independent mass media are under threat of extermination, closed public associations working with civil society, the Belarusan Lyceum is bereft of chance for normal functioning, the pressure on oppositional parties and their members is growing, ideological control is introduced throughout the country.

The authorities carry out a purposeful campaign to exclude democratic forces representatives from the election process. An all-embracing system of falsification of vote results has been created and works.

In this situation the consolidation of all opposition forces and a common strategy in the future election campaign is essential.

Reasoning from common aims, returning Belarus to democracy, and willingness of other democratic forces to carry out united actions, the European coalition “Free Belarus” proposes the coalition 5+ to have talks and consolations to work out a plan of common actions.

Objective of the talks would be working out a common approach to democratic forces’ participation in the vote.
- Aims of the participation in the parliamentary election.
- Planned campaigns.
- Organization of observation.
- Role of parties and other organizations.

Talks’ objective is elaboration of concrete steps to unite forces, in particular:
- To avoid unnecessary competition of democratic candidates
- To choose the most effective concept of a nationwide campaign
- For the sake of united resistance elections’ falsification and campaigns of the authorities against democratic candidates