Six campaign teams denied registration in Vitsebsk region
In all six cases, the potential candidates for members of local councils allegedly failed to submit accurate nomination papers. These include Uladzimir Pravalski, who was running for President in 2010. Then, the CEC did not register him as a candidate, as part of collected signatures was deemed invalid.
Now Uladzimir Pravalski, who wanted to be a candidate for the Regional Council, is also having problems with the documents. This was told by a member of the Regional Election Commission, head of the regional office of the Party Left "Fair World" Mikalai Selivashka:
"So far, Uladzimir Pravalski is the only one who complained that his initiative group was not registered. He says he spoke to members of the commission asking them to study the documents and suggest if something was wrong. And supposedly there were no comments. However, his campaign team was not registered because of mistakes in the collected documents. I proposed to convene a meeting of the Regional Commission and to register Pravalski’s group, since he was not given any explanations. Moreover, the mistakes are purely "technical" and not grave. But the commission refused to hold a meeting on the occasion.”
As yet, there is no information that a campaign team of any of the democratic activists of the Vitsebsk region was denied registration.
According to official information from the executive committee’s website, the registration of initiative groups was applied for in 2,362 cases, 2,356 groups were eventually registered.
Among the applicants were members of political parties, who decided to form campaign teams and collect signatures for themselves, without waiting for being nominated by the local party offices. 42 people indicated their party affiliation, and most represented the Left Party "Fair World" (11 persons), Belarusian Party Communists (10 people), the BPF Party (9 people).
However, the website of the government-run regional newspaper "Vitebskiye vesti" told its readers that there was only one political party in the region. This is what journalist Volha Maslouskaya writes about the party nomination stage of potential candidates: "At the moment, meetings of the governing bodies of the political party are being held across the region... where nominees are determined." The regional newspaper does not specify which party is meant. And neither the executive committee, the election commission, nor the party members themselves are quick to report of the obvious political mistake.
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