Central Election Commission Gets More Powers

Lidzia Iarmoshyna, chair of Central Election Commission, informed RFE/RL about new ways to control the presidential election in 2006.
According to her, CEC actively prepares to the election and will increase its control during registration of the candidates to presidency:
-- Central Election Commission will be guided by the presidential decree that prohibits the use of free foreign aid, -- she said.
According to Lukashenka, technical foreign aid can’t be used for production and distribution of agitation materials, organization of meetings and other mass measures, agitation and political work with the population. The law machinery and secret services are empowered to liquidate the secret channels of foreign aid.
Stanislau Shushkievich, one of the democratic candidatures, commented Iarmoshyna’s statement in the following way:
-- Iarmoshyna and her masters understand that a strong united political force arises. It includes not only political parties, but also non-political organizations. Many of them have been liquidated by the authorities, but they still exist. They consult one another and resist the lawlessness. That’s why the authorities try to put obstacles. They are almost agonising.
Vasil Liavonau, chair of the board of the regional organization For New Belarus also points out that the decree about prohibition of foreign aid can result in exclusion of any candidate from the electoral race, providing one more formal reason for it. This is the way the authorities demonstrate limitless impudence.