Belarus parliament elections

MINSK, 4 August (BelTA) – In a video posted on the Elections 2016 website, Chairperson of the Central Election Commission Lidia Yermoshina listed the cases when potential candidates may be denied registration, BelTA has learned.

Lidia Yermoshina reminded that 630 people have been nominated throughout the country to stand in the elections to Parliament. Now the election commissions are busy validating their documents. After that they will make decisions as to whether grant or deny registration.

The election commissions are verifying the authenticity of the signatures collected for this or that candidate. At first they will verify at least 20%, or 200 signatures. If more than 15% of the signatures are recognized as unreliable, the election commissions will check another 150 signatures. If the total number of unauthentic signatures exceeds 15%, the candidate will be denied registration.

Those who have been nominated by labor collectives will have the number of the personnel working at an enterprise checked. The enterprise must have at least 300-strong workforce and at least 50% should be present at a meeting nominating candidates.

Reasons to deny registration include violation of laws by the initiative group during the nomination phase (if the group received any official warnings); unreliable information on income and property of the candidate or non-presentation of the income and property declaration; absence of a statement of consent from a candidate to stand for a seat in the parliament.

Lidia Yermoshina also noted that due to the changes in the legislation this year a candidate can stand in the elections only in one constituency.

According to the CEC head, during the examination of documents the election commissions pay special attention to such things as foreign funding to support persons running for a seat in the parliament. Abusing an official position with a view to being nominated and elected during the election campaign is a gross violation of the legislation.

Once the candidate registration period is over, election commissions will draw lots to determine the date and time slots of their appearances on state-run television and radio. Apart from that, candidates will also be able to publish their election programs in state-run mass media free of charge. Candidates will be offered to set up election campaign funds to conduct an extensive pre-election campaign, buy airtime and newspaper space, publish campaign materials and so on.