Biaroza district: authorities create deficit of members of parties and NGOs in PECs
20 out of the 50
precinct election commissions of the Biaroza district have less than 1/3rd
of representatives of political parties and public associations among its
staff. Meanwhile, representatives of two oppositional parties, the Belarusian
Popular Front and the Belarusian Leftist Party Fair World weren’t included in PECs #14 and #17.
However, according to the lawyer of the Biaroza District Election Commission
Yauhen Kashtalian, it is not a violation of the electoral legislation, as far
as according Article 34 of the Electoral Code ‘as a rule, the organs that form
the commissions include in it at least 1/3rd representatives of
political parties and public associations’. The lawyer alleges that the words
‘as a rule’ witness that this norm is not obligatory.
There’s the following information about the formation of the PECs in the
Biaroza district: 239 out of 491 members of commissions were nominated by
collection of electors’ signatures, 93 – by ‘labor collectives’, 159 – by NGOs
and political parties (including 5 by the Belarusian Popular Front, 47 – by the
Belarusian Republican Youth Union, 27 – by Belaya
Rus, 16 – by the Belarusian Union of Women, 10 – by the Belarusian Union of
Military Officers, 55 – by trade union organizations, 2 – by Red Cross and 1 –
by the organization of veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections