Anatoly Paulau: “No point in running in elections for candidates for local council members”

The United Civil Party nominated 120 party activists as members of district electoral commissions of Minsk. Only 10 of them succeed to pass registration.

Such results made the party doubt of sense in further running in the local council elections.

“Only some democratic activists are included in electoral commissions,” Anatoly Paulau, the head of the UCP city organization, noted. “A question whether we should run in such elections proposes itself. If our people haven’t been included in the electoral commissions, it makes no sense for candidates for local council members to take part in the campaign, as it will be an unfair game. The authorities will get legitimacy again.”

The head of the Minsk UCP organization added that though such moods were becoming more popular in regions, none of the party candidate would be withdrawn forcefully. Signatures are being collected, preliminary work with the electorate is being carried out, electoral campaign will be conducted, “Human Rights Activists for Free Elections” reports.

“If a number of democratic members in electoral commission were representative and it covered at least 20%, it would be reasonably to extrapolate the results of the work on the whole electoral process. Naturally, the authorities don’t want to allow this,” Anatoly Paulau noted. “There’s a paradoxical system in the country – electoral commissions are formed by executive powers, not by the Central Election Commission, which is supposed to work in this area and involve party activists, public organizations and labour collectives in the electoral process.

A principle of inclusion people in commissions is unclear. They are not composed of the candidates who have experience in elections, but include the most harmless persons,” the head of the Minsk UCP organization thinks.

“For example, two 25-year old representatives of the social democrats weren’t included in electoral commission for a reason they don’t have enough experience. But representatives of the pro-governmental Belarusian Republican Youth Union, who are much younger, were included,” Anatoly Paulau said. “This demonstrates the situation in whole. We will have elections without elections, as usual.”