OPPONENTS MISS OPPORTUNITY FOR COUNTERSTRIKE

2006-09-19

By Alyaksandr KLASKOWSKI

Authorities have announced plans to rush electoral law changes through the National Assembly this fall, months before local elections. The move has met with a weak reaction of the opposition.

European organizations have long insisted on the democratization of Belarus' laws concerning elections. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) severely criticized Belarus' electoral laws in its final report on the 2006 presidential election in Belarus. "The Election Code limits civil and political rights, lacks sufficient safeguards for political pluralism and transparency, and fails to guarantee the integrity of early voting, election day voting, counting and tabulation of results. Although recommendations were made to bring the Code more closely in line with OSCE commitments for democratic elections, the Belarusian authorities, to date, appeared unwilling to consider them. Implementation of the Code further undermined possibilities for the law to safeguard the election process in line with OSCE commitments."

Opponents appear to have given up their effort to change the Election Code. Two years earlier, they collected signatures under a proposal to cancel early voting, guarantee representation of opposition parties on election commissions, grant observers the right to choose a convenient place for monitoring the ballot counting process and request copies of counting sheets certified by the chairperson and secretary of the precinct commission.

Refusal by the House of Representatives leadership to send the proposals to the floor prompted the sponsors - three members of the dissident Respublika group: Valery Fralow, Uladzimir Parfyanovich and Syarhey Skrabets - to go on a hunger strike in June 2004.

Mikalai Lazavik, secretary of the central election commission, then cautioned against altering laws in the run-up to a parliamentary election.

Now the authorities plan to introduce changes months before local elections. The bill would scrap the second (runoff) round in elections for local soviets, remove a clause from the Presidency Law stipulating a two-term limit for presidents, which was abolished through the 2004 referendum, limit election observation opportunities, introduce penalties for illegal campaign financing, and require candidates to obtain permission for outdoor meetings with voters.

"We should be prepared to conduct the local elections on the basis of both old and new versions of the law," said Lidziya Yarmoshyna, chairwoman of the central election commission.

Strangely, the opposition has not used the opportunity to attack authorities for double standards and remind the public of the shelved proposals.

"The authorities are afraid of infiltration of undesirable elements into local soviets," commented opposition leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich in an interview with the Vremya Novostei. "The changes are a reaction to our initiatives," he added.

It is true, the authorities have learned a lesson from the opposition's effective actions during this year's presidential campaign, but is it the reason for the opposition to rest on laurels?

Anatol Lyabedzka, leader of the United Civic Party (UCP), says his party did not care much about the new legislation. "Frankly speaking, we are absolutely indifferent [to the bill]. We intend to use the local elections to achieve our objectives and the law to be enacted by the authorities will not affect our plans."

This is a strange argument. Politics does not boil down to internal objectives of a political party in an election period. In addition, the amendments would introduce restrictions that will apply to subsequent elections.

It is clear that the authorities will never accept the opposition's proposals. But this is a good opportunity to attract public attention to the need for democratizing electoral laws, says Mikhail Pastukhow, a lawyer with the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ). If the opposition mailed its proposals to the House of Representatives secretariat and publicized the move, authorities would have to explain why they rejected the proposals.

"One of the opposition's chronic problems is failure to react promptly to mistakes of the authorities," notes Valery Karbalevich, a political analyst. There were several situations in the last few months that the opposition could turn to its advantage. Take, for instance, the potash industry crisis or a recent drunken scuffle on a suburban train. The latter showed that the police are too preoccupied with dissidents to protect people from drunken hooligans.