Party of Communists of Belarus Starts Boycotting Local Election

06.12.2006.

On 5 December the registration of candidates to local elections started in Belarus. According to the Election Code, this procedure will last till 14 December. At the same time, the nominees of the Party of Communists of Belarus start boycotting the election.

In his interview to RFE/RL the PCB chair Siarhei Kaliakin stated that nominees from parties start to revoke their documents from election commissions. ‘There’s a recommendation of the PCB assembly for the people to withdraw their candidacies today and tomorrow. I think this process will last for three days. If we manage to show people what is going on they will understand that it is no election, because representatives of the authorities are elected on non-competitive basis. People will think whether such election is worth participating in it’.

According to Siarhei Kaliakin, at present the PCB has almost 200 nominees. All in all, they collected more than 70 000 signatures in their support. For instance, the resident of Homel Uladzimir Siakerka collected 300 signatures, but he revokes this list from his election circuit. In his statement to the election commission Mr Siakerka explains it in the following way: ‘First of all, none of our representatives were included in the election commissions. It reflects the intention of the authorities to rig the election. Recently the many country’s official has even stated that the last presidential election in Belarus was rigged. That’s why I have no intention to take part in this play and lie to my electors.’

On 5 December in his interview to RFE/RL the secretary of the Central Election Commission Mikalai Lazavik expressed his reaction to the actions of the PCB nominees: ‘I can’t understand this organized action. It means that they collected facts of suppression, though there wasn’t any.’ Mr Lazavik also stated he had no information about violations during passing of documents for registration of candidates to election commissions.