Paradoxes of electoral campaign in Belarus

Analyzing news about the electoral campaign in some towns of the Vitsebsk region, one can find a lot of unaccountable and even paradoxical situations.

Isn’t it a paradox a situation in the Navalukolm constituency #28 for elections to the Vitsebsk region local council? The constituency has two candidates – director general of Vitsebskenergo unitary enterprise Pavel Kharytonau and his employee Ivan Yubko, a security guard at Lukolm district power station of Vitsebskenergo, the campaign “Human Rights Activists for Free Elections” reports.

Two chiefs compete with each other for a seat in the Hlubokae district local council in Kamsamolski constituency #2 – Yury Bervyachonak, chief engineer of Vitsebskobldorstoy’s branch in Hlubolae, and Maria Kashko, director of the public manufacturing and commercial enterprise “Hlubokskaya Yalinka” of the Belarusian Association of Physically Disabled People. Only 30 candidates run for 29 seats in the Sennitsy district local council. Only Kastrychnitski constituency #7 has two candidates – two local independent officials Vasily Stupanevich, director of Sennostroymeliovodkhoz enterprise, and Aleh Usyalyonak, deputy chief doctor of the Sennitsa central hospital. It is strange why the local authorities didn’t solve this situation by allowing only one candidate to run in the election.

Only one candidate, head of provate unitary enterprise “Avtodiagnostika” Mikhail Slavetski, was registered in Savetski constituency #3. There is nothing unusual expect for the fact that the candidate is a member of the Communist Party of Belarus. A paradox is that he is a free entrepreneur and a communist.

Yauheny Lysyonak, director of transport enterprise #16 in Hlubokae, a candidate in the Chyrvonaarmeyski constituency #10, lives in the village of Sharkaushchyna, which doesn’t belong to the constituency he is registered in. There’s no doubt that Lysyonak will be elected a member of the Hlubokae district council, as he is the only candidate in the constituency.