Human Rights Defenders: “Elections” In Belarus Remain Invisible For Voters

Nevertheless, human rights defenders keep on recording violations connected with the agitation campaigns held by the pro-government candidates.

The agitation campaign which is happening in the view of the upcoming “parliamentary elections” in Belarus is still not very noticeable in the society. The observers of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” have come to this conclusion in their report upon observation of the electoral campaign on August 22-28, BelaPAN news agency writes.

The observers recorded the incidents connected with setting obstacles in publication of agitation materials of the opposition candidates, censorship of the materials, including pleas to coordinate and correct the contents thereof, which is not prescribed by the electoral legislation.

Commenting upon the process of the agitation campaign, they note that “locally, with the exception of some regions, the activity of political parties the candidates of which participate in the electoral campaign remains practically unnoticed”. “In all electoral districts, the pro-government candidates actively agitate: their authorized representatives, who are mostly CEOs of enterprises and organizations, hold pickets, meet with voters at their workplaces, also during working hours,” — stated in the report.

Herein, cases of pressure on the most active opposition candidates in a series of regions have been recorded. In particular, such candidates complain about the obstacles in placing agitation materials and organization of meetings with voters in specially allocated places, about the problems with opening electoral bank accounts, and impediments in holding pickets from the side of the district elections commissions’ members. Local authorities sometimes fail to inform the voters about the time and place of meetings with candidates, the human rights defenders underline.

The observers note that, according to the information of the end of last week, 360 candidates opened their electoral accounts. Apart from that, some pro-government candidates take advantage of the financial assets and other administrative opportunities outside the electoral budget.

“Filling the electoral funds of the pro-government candidates is happening due to the support of the CEOs of companies, who often happen to be the candidates’ authorized representatives,” — stated in the report.

They have also noted the facts of forcible participation in the agitation campaign of the pro-government candidates. For example, in Smarhon, school administrations force teachers to attend the meetings with the candidate for “deputy”, Chairman of the district executive committee Adam Kavalko; in Salihorsk, the employees of the sewing company “Kalinka” are forced to participate in the pickets in support of the pro-government candidate Andrei Rybak during their working hours. Apart from that, the administration of Hlybokaye district executive committee, according to the human rights defenders’ information, openly urges to vote for the Chairman of the “house of representatives” Uladzimir Andreichanka, at the meetings of the working collectives.

The human rights defenders also claim that the volume and the contents of publications about the pro-authoritative candidates in some regional media reveal the unequal attitude to all contenders for the places in the “parliament”.

The report says that, during this period a number of independent observers faced obstacles from the local election commissions in obtaining information about the electoral campaign.

The observers point out that since the beginning of the campaign, the election commissions of all levels received 385 complaints, most of them were sent to the CEC. Earlier, during the previous "elections", the CEC did not publish this information.

The campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" is conducted by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center "Viasna" (officially closed by the authorities in 2003).

We remind, the Belarusian opposition leaders took the initiative to hold a rally demanding new free elections on September 12.