February 7, Pozirk. Signature collection, candidate nomination and registration were notable for a lack of electioneering, the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections said in a recent report released on February 6.
Political parties did not advertise their candidates and did not ask voters to give them endorsement signatures, it noted.
The government stoked fear, preventing independent candidates from collecting ballot-access signatures, the report said, citing a failed attempt by Dźmitryj Kučuk, a former leader of the Belarusian Greens Party, to register a signature-collection group.
Most registered candidates represent the “nomenklatura,” while few candidates represent the working class; all candidates declare pro-government views, so there is no real contest between them, rights defenders noted.
The monitoring group noted a sharp increase in partisan candidates with 42 percent parliamentary candidates and 27.6 local candidates running from the Biełaja Ruś party founded by Łukašenka supporters last year.
In many districts, Biełaja Ruś candidates face off against each other, which is indicative of “the imitative nature of such party representation,” the report noted.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections was set up by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Viasna Human Rights Center to collect and analyze election-related data from open sources.
On February 25, Belarus will hold elections for the House of Representatives and local councils.
The country has not held a single free and fair election since 1996, by standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Last year, the government decided against inviting OSCE observers.
