Vintsuk Vyachorka, deputy chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), has been denied registration as a candidate in September’s elections for the House of Representatives.
As Mr. Vyachorka told BelaPAN, a Minsk district election commission has cited “inaccuracies” in signatures on his ballot access petition as the formal grounds for its decision. “But it is clear to everyone that I have not been registered because I will interfere with pro-government candidates’ plans to win a parliamentary seat and will push for honest, free, open and fair elections. We are well aware that decisions on registration or non-registration as candidate are made not by the district election commission but on a much higher level,” the politician said.
Another BPF deputy chairman, Viktar Ivashkevich, and prominent BPF member Ales Lahvinets also have been denied access to the ballot, according to Mr. Vyachorka.
Opposition politician Mikalay Statkevich has been denied registration as candidate in September`s parliamentary elections.
The election commission in Minsk`s number 106 district cited the politician`s conviction and rejected as fake part of signatures that were collected by his nomination group.
Mr. Statkevich was sentenced to three years of restricted freedom in May 2005 for staging a series of unauthorized demonstrations in central Minsk in the fall of 2004 against the official results of the 2004 parliamentary elections and national referendum, which are widely believed to have been rigged. The sentence was reduced by one year under an amnesty law and in May 2007.
Mr. Statkevich was granted a release on parole, but he is still deemed to have the conviction.
The politican told BelaPAN that he had not hoped for the registration. "I was curious to know whether the constitution or the Electoral Code would be regarded as more important. Under the code, I should not be given the registration. But the constitution specifies only two denial grounds – imprisonment and court-declared illegal competence," he said.
He said that he was set to appeal against the registration denial to the central election commission and then to the Supreme Court.
"It is important to find out whether the constitution or the law, which can be changed at the whim of one person, is more important in the country," Mr. Statkevich said.
Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, head of the long-term observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, praised the current operating conditions for election monitors.
The experience so far has been solely positive, Dr. Ahrens told reporters in Minsk on Wednesday. In particular, he said, the invitations arrived on time, the mission had no technical problems, met with highest-ranking government officials and arranged for itself to have meetings with the foreign ministry’s officials and members of the central election commission every Thursday.
Nevertheless, the mission will base its conclusions about the parliamentary elections primarily on what happens on the voting day and how the counting process goes, Dr. Ahrens said, adding that the most important thing is that observers should attend the counting of ballots. The mission would very much like its assessment of the elections to be favorable, but this will depend on what scenario the rest of the campaign will follow, he said.
Political parties play a small role in Belarus, Dr. Ahrens noted, suggesting that this might be a result of the historical development of society in Belarus. The role of parties in the election process should be more important, he stressed.
The leaders of the United Pro-Democratic Forces (UPF), the main opposition coalition, on August 27 decided to invite Uladzimir Makey, head of the Presidential Administration, to meet them to discuss the ongoing parliamentary campaign.
The coalition would like to discuss the possibility of including an additional number of its representatives in precinct election commissions. The UPF leaders noted that this could be done because most of the commissions do not have the maximum possible membership.
In addition, the coalition wants to discuss the issue of access to the state media for its parliamentary candidates, as well as to suggest television debates and discussions in the press on the most important political and socio-economic subjects.
Opposition political parties and organizations reportedly nominated some 1,500 representatives to precinct commissions, but only 47 of them were included, which accounted for three percent of the total number of opposition nominees and 0.06 percent of the total membership of the commissions, which comprise almost 70,000 members. //BelaPAN
The public should defend the Radiation Safety Institute (Belrad) against government pressure, Ivan Nikitchanka, a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences, told BelaPAN.
He described the recent decease of Belrad Director Vasil Nestsyarenka as a great loss for Belarus.
"Despite all rules that were accepted in the Soviet times, he worked not in general, but for the people," Dr. Nikitchanka said. "Immediately after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, he provided the country's leadership with trustworthy information about the radiation danger that Belarus was facing."
According to Dr. Nikitchanka, despite government persecution, Dr. Nestsyarenka began developing devices for measuring the levels of radiation to which the environment and people were exposed. The decision to establish Belrad followed his dismissal as director of the Nuclear Power Engineering Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Nikitchanka said.
Belrad, which was developing devices and medicines for removing radionuclides from the human body, had to move three times to new rented offices, until it was finally decided to construct a building for the Institute in the village of Navinki near Minsk, Dr. Nikitchanka said.
"The Institute has been under heavy government pressure for more than a year, as information about radiation levels in Belarus is more secret now than it was in the Soviet times," he noted. "Even the health and emergency management ministries aren't in the know."
Monitoring carried out by Belrad and medical workers in a number of areas has found a clear correlation between the levels of radioactive contamination and the state of public health, Dr. Nikitchanka said. Last year the government prohibited Belrad from using a device for measuring body doses and closed Belarus' only manufacturing facility for pectin medications that help the body get rid of radionuclides, he added.
A petition in defense of Belrad by eight prominent Belarusian researchers to Deputy Prime Minister Alyaksandr Kasinets so far has remained unanswered, Dr. Nikitchanka noted.
He pointed out that Belarusian scientists would do everything possible to help Belrad continue and develop its activities.
28 August 2008
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