Lidziya Yarmoshyna: Plebiscite can be prepared in two months :: Charter'97 :: News

Another parliamentary election in Belarus is planned for October 12, 2008. This day has been named by the Central election commission of the country one of these days. However, liberalization of electoral legislation is one of requirements of western countries for improvement relations with the government. The head of the Belarusian Central Election Committee Lidziya Yarmoshyna told about her attitude top the demands of the international community in an interview to “Vremya Novostej”:

“I do not exclude that a conference on electoral legislation would be organized, and discussions would be held, and decisions of advisory nature would be taken. A few years ago we held this kind of events under aegis of the OSCE. Like all meetings of the kind, it ended in nothing. We talked and broke apart. I find such events absolutely fruitless,” the head of the CEC said.

To the question whether it is possible to amend the electoral legislation in the way the West insists on before the parliamentary elections, Yarmoshyna said:

“We do not plan anything like that today. Recommendations on this issue had been given to us rather by the OSCE and not by western countries. Every election campaign desires of this organization differ. To my mind, their nature is determined by taste, and not conforms to any logics. For instance, we were offered the borders of constituencies to be affirmed not by the CEC, but by the parliament. It’s hard for me to understand the aim of this amendment, as the parliament is an interested party in that. In reality our electoral legislation isn’t worse than in other states. Belarusian citizens do not have serious objections against the existing system of holding elections; it is acceptable for the society”.

But to a remark that Russia representatives talked about a possibility to hold a referendum on a constitutional act this year, and to a question whether the CEC head had talks with Russian colleagues, Yarmoshyna answered:

“Such talks haven’t been carried out; as such tasks haven’t been received by me or my colleagues from Russia from leaderships of their countries. We have technical opportunities for holding referendum. Plebiscite can be prepared in two month in Belarus, if means would be found in the budget for that. But the most important thing is a political will, which is to be common for the both states”.

The CEC chairwoman has also stated that under the law we can carry out a referendum simultaneously with parliamentary elections. It is even better, as it allows us to cut down expenses and increase interest to the election campaign. But it doesn’t mean that referendum will be held together with the elections”.