Homel: Officials turned into “community workers”

In the same way as during the previous elections, officials join the election commissions as members of public associations.

On September 27 a regional election commission was created. It has 13 members, most of them (10 persons) are representatives of political parties and public associations. Representatives of 6 parties qualified for joining the commission: the United Civil Party, the Belarusian Popular Front party, “The Just World”, the Communist Party of Belarus, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Labour and Justice, but only three persons have been put on the commission (members of the LDP, the CPB and the RPLJ). Others are members of public associations and those who had been nominated through applications of citizens, “Human Rights Watchdogs for Free Elections” report.

It should be noted that 6 out of 13 members of the commission already worked during the previous election to local councils. And in the same way as in the previous elections, the officials entered the commission as representatives of public associations. For instance, Margaryta Zhorava joined the commission as a member of the Belarusian Republic Union of Lawyers public association. However, it is not said that she is deputy head of the main directorate of justice of Homel regional executive committee, and a member of the Council of Republic, deputy chairman of the Standing Commission of the Council of Republic of the National Assembly on Lawmaking and State-Building.

Mikhail Zhukevich is also a member of the regional commission. He is a representative of the regional branch of the Belarusian Trade Union of Culture Workers. He probably works somewhere in the sphere of culture, though recently he was a deputy head of the main directorate of the ideology work of the regional executive committee, and before that he headed the Nationalities and Religious Affairs Council.

Mikhail Ihnatsenka, chairman of the regional council of veterans, and rector of the Extension Course Institute for Teacher Nadzeja Kotava are also members of the commission. However, they have joined the commission as representatives of “Belaya Rus” public association. Vice-principal of Sukhoj Homel Technical University, Stanislau Prakapenka, has become the member of the commission due to the “party quota”, as a member of the Communist Party of Belarus.