Translated material
Election rehearsal
Belarusians will test the new rules in practice
Local elections in Belarus scheduled for the end of April will serve as a dress rehearsal for the 2011 presidential campaign. Local elections will not have a serious impact on the balance of political forces. However, the EU countries will closely monitor their progress and, depending on the conclusions drawn, will already build relations with Minsk. Independent experts believe that for this reason, opposition representatives have a chance to receive a certain number of parliamentary mandates.“The most interesting event of the upcoming campaign may be the appearance of opposition representatives in local government bodies. This is quite likely, since Minsk is interested in improving relations with the West. But the authorities will still not allow a mass entry of oppositionists into local councils. After all, such a development of events would allow the opposition to claim that it enjoys the trust of society, and therefore has a chance of success in the presidential elections,” Belarusian political scientist and former member of parliament Olga Abramova told Vremya Novostey.
Elections to local councils will be held on April 25, the date recently set by President Alexander Lukashenko by decree. The election campaign will be conducted under new rules for the first time. In the fall of 2009, the Belarusian parliament introduced amendments to the electoral legislation. Restrictions were introduced on the participation of officials in election commissions, the procedure for nominating candidates from political parties was simplified, and opportunities for campaigning were expanded. The Central Election Commission stated that when preparing the amendments, proposals from the European Union were taken into account, which considers the liberalization of election legislation to be one of the conditions for improving relations with Belarus. The opposition believes that the amendments are cosmetic in nature. The next campaign to be carried out after the amendments are introduced will be the presidential elections scheduled for February 2011. Today, the main candidate for them is 55-year-old Lukashenko, who has already announced his intention to again apply for the post of head of state.