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Belarusian Popular Front leader denounces local elections

Alyaksey Yanukevich, chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), on Monday denounced the country's April 20-25 local elections, as quoted by BelaPAN.

"What happened on April 25 [the main voting day] cannot be called not only free and fair elections but also elections altogether," he told reporters in Minsk.

"It is symbolic in a way that fake elections were held for these fake soviets. Today we can say with complete certainty that all changes to electoral regulations that were adopted before the elections have become simply an impudent mockery of society. These changes have not only not led to bigger freedom in these elections. After the introduction of these changes to the Electoral Code we have seen even more impudent and considerably more senseless irregularities," Mr. Yanukevich said.

He accused the election authorities of securing too high turnout in early voting and said that poll workers in some precincts had delivered ballots even to those voters who had not visited the polling station and had not asked for the ballot to be brought to their home.

According to the politician, many experts predicted that the authorities would view the local elections as a rehearsal for next year's presidential elections. "In my opinion, the government's play went too far and it viewed the elections as the first round of the presidential elections - so big was the number of irregularities," he said.

Alyaksandr Milinkevich, leader of the Movement for Freedom, said that the opposition's involvement in the elections was key to awareness raising and increasing the public's level of political culture.

"I have the impression that the public has become more mature. There is no all-out aggressiveness or black-and-white thinking. People are beginning to ask themselves questions and this is a good sign," the former presidential candidate said.

He said that people in the provinces had been told to stay away from meetings with opposition activists or lose their job ahead of the elections.

However, he said, such ultimatums are counterproductive and prompt people to think more about the situation.
Artur Finkevich, leader of the Maladaya Belarus youth group, said that the organization's candidate, Pavel Prakapovich, was said to have gained just 10 percent of the vote in a district near Minsk.

He questioned the officially reported turnout of nearly 80 percent in the elections. "Most people did not go to the polls. The turnout across the country was around 35 percent," he said.