Prosecutor General’s Office forms a working group “to strengthen supervision over the correct course of voting” on the new Constitution

February 14, BPN. The Prosecutor General’s Office has formed a working group “to strengthen supervision over the correct course of the voting” on the new Constitution of Belarus, Deputy Prosecutor General Maksim Varonin said at a meeting with the head of the CIS observation mission Leonid Anfimov at the end of last week.

According to the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Varonin stated that similar working groups have been created in regional prosecutor’s offices “representing the most experienced prosecutors.”

The Deputy Prosecutor General added that the task of state agencies consisted “not only in promoting the constitutional right of citizens to participate in elections and referenda, but also in maintaining law and order, preventing destructive activities of political forces and emergence of hotbeds of instability in Belarus.”

Maryna Papova, the head of the department supervising the implementation of legislation and the legality of laws at the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that the supervisory body and law enforcement agencies “prevented the shutdown of enterprises and disruption of production processes, localizing the protest activities of the younger generation.”

According to Papova, the Prosecutor’s Office monitors the media “in order to identify materials of a destructive nature, facts of the dissemination of unreliable or negative information about the social and economic life of the state.” 47 cases were referred to courts for recognition of information materials as extremist.

“Due to the dissemination of destructive appeals to spoil the ballots during the voting in order to disrupt the referendum, orders were issued to restrict access to three Internet websites,” she noted.

Early voting in the referendum will be held between February 22 and February 26. The main voting day is February 27. The referendum question to be answered: “Do you accept the amendments and additions to the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus?”

Key proposed amendments include legitimisation of the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a restoration of the rule limiting the presidency by one person to a maximum of two terms, introduction of immunity for former presidents, and monopolization of the state ideology.