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United Civic Party to launch “campaign for fair elections”

 

Participants at the opposition United Civic Party (UCP)’s convention held in Minsk on Saturday decided that the party should launch a “campaign for fair elections.”

UCP leader Anatol Lyabedzka stressed in his speech that there could be no free and fair elections in present-day Belarus.

“Participation in elections according to the authorities’ rules would create an illusion that real elections are held in the country and would contribute to the legitimization of the election results,” he said. “At the same time an election boycott would require large funds that the party and the opposition forces in general don’t have. That’s why such a strategy would be inefficient.”

Given the situation, the most correct way is to use the elections to achieve the party’s own aims and objectives, Mr. Lyabedzka noted. “For the first time, we want to impose our plan on the authorities,” he said.

According to Mr. Lyabedzka, the UCP will nominate candidates for September's House of Representatives elections, but they will actually be spokespersons to communicate the party's message to voters. “The message will be the following: Lukashenka and his system are a deadlock and fair elections without Lukashenka are the only way out of the deadlock,” he said.

The UCP would withdraw all its candidates before the beginning of the early voting period. The candidates would use their right to deliver five-minute television and radio addresses to voters and publish their platforms in public newspapers but would not spend the public funds to be provided to them to finance their campaigns so that the party would not have to repay the money following the withdrawal of the candidates. Instead, the UCP contenders would set up individual funds to finance their campaigns, during which they would call on people to join the campaign for fair elections, not to vote in the elections and, if forced to do so, to cast their ballots on the final day, voting against all candidates.

This strategy is better than participation in the elections until the very end in a hope to somehow obtain a parliamentary seat, Mr. Lyabedzka stressed. “Members of the Belarusian parliament are appointed by Lukashenka, whereas we want to get elected in a fair election,” he said. // BelaPAN