Comfortable local elections

Alyaksandr KLASKOWSKI

Belarus held local elections from January 9 to 14. The central election commission reported a turnout of 78.7 percent and declared the elections valid in all 22.661 districts. It is expected to announce the final results on January 18 or 19.

Only 21 out of the 22,661 seats on the country’s 1,581 local soviets remain empty. This was the first election conducted in one round with seats awarded to candidates with the largest number of votes in their districts.

After casting his ballot on January 14, Alyaksandr Lukashenka suggested combining local and parliamentary elections to save money and voters’ time. The latter seems to be of greater importance to the Belarusian leader who is always happy to limit opportunities for the opposition to legally promote their ideas.

Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, said the election was “surprisingly comfortable for the organizers.” She added that the commission received few complaints, mostly unfounded.

The Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) claimed, however, the local elections had failed to meet democratic standards.

BHC observers reported multiple flaws, said Hary Pahanyaila, executive director of the non-governmental organization.

Some pro-democracy candidates were unable to print campaign leaflets because printers turned down their orders, others were denied permission to meet with voters outdoors. Dozens of opposition activists were arrested.

The opposition initially fielded about 1,000 aspirants. Approximately 200 were registered for the race, and only one representative of the opposition was given seat on an election commission. Many opposition candidates withdrew from the race citing unfair conditions and the likelihood of vote rigging.

Nevertheless, a handful of pro-democracy candidates reportedly managed to win seats.

Valery Karbalievich, a political analyst, blamed the opposition for the lack of clear strategy in an interview. The original plan by opposition parties to conduct a closely coordinated campaign and send a strong common message to the voters did not materialize.

“When opposition candidates withdraw, authorities need not falsify the results. They could open polling stations to observer to prove the lack of irregularities,” Karbalevich said.

If candidates decide to pull out, they should do it together and offer clear explanations to the voters who supported their nomination bids.

Opposition leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich, in an interview with RFE/RL Belarusian Service, said that pro-democracy forces cannot be blamed for failure to field more candidates because aspirants risked losing their jobs or face expulsion from universities. He called those who dared to run “missionaries.”

He admitted failure of the pro-democratic alliance’s plan to use the local elections for preparing the 2^nd Congress of Pro-Democratic Forces. “Most activists (a toured more than 50 cities) stopped electioneering after they collected the required number of ballot-access signatures. That was a mistake because the main purpose of the opposition was to reach out to voters,” he said.

From the very announcement of the elections, the authorities sought to limit public attention to the campaign.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), which monitored the state and private media from December 4 to January 14, found that elections received little coverage in both private media and state media. Moreover, the state-controlled media outlets almost completely ignored the campaign stage.

Central election commission head Yarmoshyna told reporters on January 15 that the elections passed off smoothly, while Lukashenka urged the newly elected members to refrain from politicking. Before the election, he said he wanted non-partisan, non-politicized and non-vocal candidates elected to local soviets. Surely, the elected candidates meet his requirements.