About Five Nominees to Compete for One Parliamentary Seat

Comment by Kiril Poznyak, editor

Most applications have been accepted, according to the Belarusian central election commission. Several dozens of rejections were mostly due to the nomination group's failure to make sure that group members were volunteers and had not been forced to take part in the work of the group.

Given that each of the registered groups nominates one person as a candidate for one of the 110 seats in the House of Representatives, the competition now stands at about 5 people per one parliamentary seat.

Opponents of the government maintain that they encountered various barriers again at this stage of the election campaign. Officials reportedly attempted to prevent the strongest members of the opposition from obtaining registration for their nomination groups.

According to opposition leaders, harassment at work has become the prevailing method of forcing members out of nomination groups, causing many of them to step down. A nomination group has to include at least ten people to be registered. As a result, many opposition candidates had to form their groups anew and apply for their registration time and time again. The outlawed Vyasna human rights group said that such methods were without precedent.

There were more negative incidents. In particular, Sergei Kalyakin, leader of the Belarusian Party of Communists, had trouble having his nomination group registered in Gomel's Novobelitsky District No. 38. The district election commission required the nomination group to provide confirmation that Kalyakin is a Belarusian citizen. However, the group was registered after the central commission sided with Kalyakin, who insisted that the election authorities had no right to require of such confirmation from him.

The registered nomination groups will have until September 6 to collect 1000 signatures of eligible voters residing in the particular district. This is one of the three ways for a potential candidate to get nominated. The other two are nomination by a party or the staff of a company employing at least 300 persons.