COLLECTING SIGNATURES ON OPEN TERRITORY

2001-07-18

Alex ZNATKEVICH, site editor.

Few days before the deadline, July 20, eight presidential hopefuls have reported that they already have the 100,000 voter signatures necessary to get registered as candidates.

In addition to the incumbent ruler, Aleksandr Lukashenko, these people are Sergei Gaidukevich, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Sinitsyn, former head of Lukashenko's administration, and the five candidates supported by the united opposition, who have vowed to work as a team and to nominate a single challenger to Lukashenko.

Mikhail Chigir, former prime minister; Semyon Domash, former governor of the Grodno region; Vladimir Goncharik, trade union leader, Sergei Kalyakin, leader of the Belarusian Party of Communists and Pavel Kozlovsky, ex-defense minister have promised to decide on the single challenger on July 21, when signature-collecting is over. They say all of them will try to register anyway, as a back-up in case the single opposition candidate is denied registration under some pretext. Other candidates who have reasonable chances to get 100,000 ballot-access signatures include Aleksandr Yaroshuk, chairman of the agro-industrial trade union; Mikhail Marinich, Belarus' ambassador to Latvia; Zenon Poznyak, emigre leader of the nationalist Conservative Christian Party and Sergei Antonchik, leader of the unregistered organization "Worker Self-Help."

The support groups of Gaidukevich, Marinich and Sinitsyn have already received warnings from the central election commission. Gaidukevich's people were allegedly passing out booklets with his photograph and biography while collecting signatures in Lida (Grodno region) and in Minsk. Such things are prohibited before registration. The group of Sinitsyn was warned for allegedly employing a man to collect signatures without his consent and for paying him $5, which is prohibited by the Electoral Code. The accusations in this case seem inconsistent because it is unclear how can someone receive payment without consent. Marinich's group was warned for a similar violation of the code. One of its members allegedly complained to the central election commission that the group had paid his travel expenses.

Meanwhile, the central election commission has found no violations in the actions of Lukashenko's support group. The chairwoman of the commission, Lidiya Yermoshina, told the state Belarusian television that none of such alleged violations had found proof. She called the information about such violations, including some BelaPAN reports, "PR directed against the elections". Yermoshina said she personally had not met any signature collectors because she lives "on restricted-access territory".

Those who live on open-access territories may find it hard to believe Yermoshina's words. For example, I receive quite the opposite information from close relatives and friends who are far from politics and whom I'm much more inclined to trust than to any government official. My mother told me how Lukashenko's collector came to the kindergarten where she works during the workday (which is prohibited by the law) and asked for signatures with the help of the administration. When some people signed, the signature-collector told them that the Constitution prohibits them from signing for anybody else (in fact, people can sign for as many candidates as they want).

A friend told me how the administration of their plant in a small town collected signatures for Lukashenko from the workers. Again, this was done during the workday. Some people who refused to sign were threatened by the bosses. Those who signed heard the same portion of lies - that they cannot sign for anybody else now.

So I won't be surprised when the central election commission announces that Lukashenko has received much more signatures than any other contender. Signature-collecting has some national peculiarities in Belarus.