Belarusian regime is going to cheat West: Falsifications being prepared again

This time the following plan will be used: opposition candidates are registered, but only people loyal to the authorities will count votes.

Belarusian politologist Viktar Charnou is analyzing the situation with the local council election after the changes in the electoral legislation in an interview to Deutsche Welle.

As the politologist thinks, in spite of the changes in the electoral legislation, the authorities still use a well-developed practice of imitation of an electoral process.

- In what degree have the recent changes in the electoral legislation influenced the transparency of the electoral process?

- The opposition is still restricted in activity during the elections. For example, political parties were given more opportunities to propose their representatives to election commissions – at least one third of the commission members should represent parties. But there’s a developed practice of the authorities to include representative of loyal organizations in election commissions. So, parties are an instrument of the authorities that allows imitating the voting and electoral processes.

Only less than on percent of opposition party representatives are included in election commissions. It is a negligible rate equal to statistical error. Having implemented the task concerning representation of opposition parties in commissions, the authorities didn’t put many obstacles for opposition candidates, most of whom have been registered.

We need to give special attention to a serious disparity in the number of applications for membership in commissions from loyal parties and the number of candidates, proposed by them. For example, the Belarusian Agrarian Party registered 7 candidates and proposed 132 people to election commissions. Two representatives of the Belarusian Social and Sport Party run in the election, but 434 party activists applied for membership in election commissions.

This disparity is not an occasion. It demonstrates the imitating nature of the pro-governmental parties and the whole electoral process in Belarus. Loyal parties do not have their own political aims, but the authorities need them to imitate the elections and rig the election results.

- The opinion polls on people’s attitude toward local council elections held 10 years ago and today show are almost the same. The majority of Belarusians think the local authorities don’t decide anything, voters don’t even know the names of the elected council members. Why don’t the citizens need the effective local power?

- Unfortunately, the Belarusian society doesn’t need free and fair elections at all. Even if people understand the elections are unfair, they agree to accept the results, because the majority thinks the authorities are always rights. The Belarusians are rather patriarchal, the society doesn’t need changes. For different reasons, many people think it is wiser to adjust to a situation than to change it. This results in political apathy and passivity.

One of the main problems is one of fear, people are intimidated. For example, at these elections activist were called in to their chiefs, who tried to make them reject signatures, withdraw from elections and leave election commissions. The society has strong fear. It is atomized, everyone takes a decision at home, in own kitchen, feels no influence of the group morality, as people do not belong to social structures and NGOs.