Expert: Authorities will find new mechanisms to control elections

Beginning from Tuesday, experts from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the National Legislation and Legal Research Center and the Central Election Commission have been at a meeting in Minsk to discuss possible amendments in the Electoral Code. The European delegation is headed by Max Lindberg from the OSCE ODIHR. The Belarusian delegation is led by Valery Mitskevich, Director of the Legislation Center and a deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission. No representatives of the opposition are attending.

The European Radio for Belarus called Mikalai Lazavik, the secretary of the Central Election Commission, to find out about the course of the negotiations. It turns out to be secret even for him.

Lazavik: “Our chief lawyer Nadzeya Kisyalyova works in that group. She said the discussions were very friendly and constructive. Some concrete proposals are discussed and could later be considered by lawmakers”.

Mikalai Lazavik also says that Max Lindberg arrived in Minsk with a prepared list of 7 concrete amendments in the electoral law. This is the result of the visit to Belarus two weeks ago by Janez Lianarczyk, the head of the OSCE ODIHR. These proposals are allegedly being discussed. Lazavik even mentioned several the most important proposals, in his view.

Lazavik: “Firstly, it is proposed to expand the borders of the election campaign, to make it freer and less controlled. In particular, it is proposed to expand the rights of candidates as regards campaign rallies. There are also questions about the registration of candidates. Political parties in this country does not have sufficiently wide social base, so one could possible give them more opportunities to take use of their membership potential. There are also proposals to expand the number of issues that can be appealed in court. These are preliminary kind of proposals”.

Meanwhile, the united pro-democracy opposition has complaints about absolutely different provisions in the electoral laws. Anatol Lyabedzka, a co-chairman of the Political Council of the United Pro-Democracy Forces (UDF), has named them for the European Radio for Belarus.

“Firstly, (we want) the representatives of the political forces or candidates that take part in the election campaign to be represented in election commission at all levels. Not only the representatives of the authorities (as it usually the case) but also the representatives of the opposition should be part of electoral commissions. Secondly, both the domestic and international observers should be allowed to monitor the voting process and to see the cast ballots rather than just to be present at a polling station. Thirdly, the early voting procedure in Belarus has become one of the major sources of election falsification. We demand that early voting be either abolished or be rigidly transparent”.

In the view of political commentator Vital Silitski, the authorities could meet the demands of the OSCE ODIHR and the Belarusian opposition and abolish, for instance, the early voting procedure. But this can happen only if they find new mechanisms to control the process.

Silitski: “If they find some other mechanisms to control the electoral process through other means, they could then abolish the early voting. One of the methods is to clean up the political space and allow only controlled subjects to take part in elections. In this case, there is no need to rig the vote count”.