Opposition ignores territorial and constituency commissions?

This made representatives from various state agencies to point to a low activity of the opposition during the local elections, despite the fact that the formation of constituency commissions and nomination of candidates for the seats at local councils is yet to be carried out.

Central Election Commission secertary Mikalai Lazavik describes today's activity of the opposition as "hard to understand".

Mikalai Lazavik: “13 political parties took part in delegating their representatives to the constituency electoral commission but with a very low activity at the level of 0.1 or 0.5 percent. This is hard to understand".

Yet, quite diplomatically, he declined to comment on the situation, saying it was hard for him to say what those figures meant: the peak of the opposition's activity at the upcoming elections or just a warm-up ahead of the polls.

Valery Ukhnalyou, a deputy chairman of one of the most active (in terms of delegating their representatives) opposition party Fair World, explains the low percentage of the oppositionists in the territorial and constituency commissions by a low motivation of the participation.

Valery Ukhnalyou: “The way how those commission were drawn up in many regions displays that nothing has really changed much in how the authorities prepare for elections. Therefore, there has been no serious motivation for taking part in the local elections”.

Despite the low motivation, the former Communists are set to nominate between 200 and 300 candidates. How many of them are going to win seats in local councils will depend greatly on how their votes will be counted by electoral commissions. The party will focus on delegating their activist to the commissions -- at least one per a commission where their candidate will run. The commissions will be formed from March 7 through March 10, according to the schedule of the Central Election Commission.

Aliaksei Yanukevich, the chairman of the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front, promises to act in the same way. "Whereever our candidates are nominated, we will cover all the polling stations. Since we plan to nominate around 140 candidates, I think we will delegate nearly 300 people to constitunecy commissions" he said.

And one should not reflect on whether the opposition is active or not. "This is not the task of Yarmoshyna or the Central Election Commission to assess how much opposition are active and whether they should be included into the local electoral commissions. There are parties; there are people who wish to be nominated on behalf of them. Just include them and that's it!, he said

But the point is that it is not so easy to find people who are ready to be delegated. There is a shortage of people, so parties try to spare them for delegating to the commissions where their presence could be of advantage at least theoretically.


Photo: http://bymedia.net/