Are democratic forces representatives to get into election commissions?

Hrodna province activists nominated 14 persons to the Province Election Commission.

On January 26, Ales Zarembiuk, the Movement for Freedom (the MFF) Hrodna province coordinator, filed 8 applications from Masty district and 6 applications from Lida district Biarozauka town on inclusion of the MFF into the Hrodna Province Election Commission on the 26th election of the local Councils’ deputies.

The Province Election Commission will include some 9-12 persons. Zarembiuk wants to use the changes to the election law as much as possible. According to these changes, one third of the election commissions would be formed of the representatives of political parties and civil associations.

“During the previous election campaigns, none of our representatives got into election commissions. Now, “cosmetic” changes to the election law were made and one third of commissions have to be formed of the representatives of civil organizations and political parties. Therefore, we delegated 14 persons so that the authorities’ representatives have the choice to include the MFF activists which they consider to be the most professional into the Hrodna Province Election Commission. Based on the nature of composition of the Commission, we could judge of the authorities’ intention to hold the open and free elections in April 2010. For the authorities, this would become the first test on democracy respect: the members of commissions will include either the people from the pro-government organizations, such as the Bielaya Rus, the Belarusian National Youth Association, the Belarusian Agricultural Party, the Republican Party, the Belarusian Patriotic Party, or the representatives of the MFF, the United Civil Party (the UCP), the Belarusian Popular Front party (the BPF), the “Green”, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, and other democratic structures”, Zarembiuk says.

Zarembiuk isn’t particularly optimistic with respect to the chances of the democrats to get into the election commission system. However, he point out that the very process of delegating the democratic representatives into commissions by way of signatures collection is important to intensify communication with the population.

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