Human rights defenders: Administrative resource is gaining strength in Belarus

• 19.11.2010, 15:44

Human rights defenders made such a conclusion as a result of the check of complaints and determination of the places for holding agitation.

Initiative groups of presidential candidates worked in at unequal conditions, activists of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” said at a press conference in Minsk on November, 19.

Summing up the results of signature collecting for the potential candidates, the campaign lawyer Valyantsin Stefanovich said that this stage passed more liberal than the same one during the previous elections. However, as regards the use of administrative resources in collecting signatures for Alyaksandr Lukashenka, observers “did not note any liberalization or democratization,” BelaPAN reports.

“The CEC actually legalized the collection of signatures by people being not members of the initiative groups by Decree # 47. It is written there that a member of the initiative group, voters and other persons on the request of a voter may make records in the subscription list. And this statement led to the facts of collecting signatures for a presidential candidate Lukashenka by people who where not members of his initiative group”- Stefanovich said.

He paid his attention to the fact that there was confusion with an explanation of the situation in the CEC.

“We were told that data of a voter can be put down in a subscription list by an assistant member of the initiative group or any person in the presence of a member of the initiative group. But there is nothing written about the presence of a member of the initiative group,” - Stefanovich said.

This, according to the human rights defender, led to the complete opacity of the verification of collecting signatures submitted for Lukashenka.