P o s i t i o n
David and Goliath: Local Elections in Belarus
Minsk Memorandum on Democratic Local Elections
Minsk, Belarus and Munich, Germany, 25 Februar 2003
Elections in Belarus.
Local elections are scheduled for 2 March 2003. These elections for local
councils will be neither free nor fair. Well in advance of the polling
date, the opposition has complained about the restrictions and repression
exercised by executive authorities in the countries. On Valentine's Day,
young members of the opposition carrying posters that read "I love
Belarus" were arrested in Minsk. Opposition politicians are barred
from the elections with specious arguments. The editors of regional newspapers
are protesting the pressure exerted by the Lukashenko regime. As in the
past, fundamental democratic principles are not being observed in Belarus.
International standards being ignored include the OSCE standards set at
the Copenhagen summit of 1990, the OSCE Practical Guidelines to Best Practices
in Democratic Elections (November 2002), the Universal Declaration on
Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. International
and domestic election observers have documented violations of OSCE democratic
standards in the local elections in 1998, parliamentary elections in 2000
and presidential elections in 2001.
Despite the unjust conditions, representatives of the democratic spectrum
in Belarus have decided to campaign for office in the current local elections.
Their goal is to work within the system and to democratize it from below.
The Belarusian Union of Young Politicians, the youth organization of the
United Civil Party, is participating in the electoral campaign and presenting
candidates for the local councils. As part of a cooperative project with
the Center for Applied Policy Research (C·A·P), the Belarusian
Union of Young Politicians has written a memorandum on democratic local
elections.
Minsk Memorandum on Democratic Local Elections
Local elections are a fundamental element of a democratic system. Creating democratic, effective and transparent local politics is one of the challenges of transformation. To lend the political system legitimacy, to exercise participation and control, to articulate political interests and to recruit new persons for the political process, elections must fulfil democratic standards. The local elections on 2 March 2003 in Belarus fail to meet this test. For the fulfillment of minimal democratic standards, we demand:
1. Reform of the electoral law: The electoral law must be changed
to stipulate that the members of the electoral commission should represent
the entire political spectrum. The electoral law must make a free, fair
and even-handed election campaign possible.
Under the current law and practices, the members of the electoral commission
are nominated by the executive and the legislature. Half of the members
of the central electoral commission are appointed by President Lukashenko.
In local electoral districts, the are nominated solely by the executive.
The opposition is underrepresented on the electoral commissions. Their
decisions on the approval of candidates and the counting of votes are
neither democratic nor transparent.
2. Complaint and appeals processes: The electoral law must provide
for uniform complaint and appeals processes, which are accessible as fair
and transparent instruments for the entire political spectrum.
The current legal and actual opportunities to lodge appeals of decisions
from the electoral commissions are limited. There is no uniform procedure
to appeal decisions of the central electoral commission. If, despite these
obstacles, an appeal is filed, the decisions generally fall in favor of
the executive. The electoral process can have only limited legitimacy
as long as the opposition criticizes the transparency and fairness of
the appeals process, thus calling into question the decisions it renders.
3. Expansion of candidates' rights according to democratic norms:
The formal conditions for the approval of candidates may no longer be
used as a restrictive instrument to exclude the opposition. Registration
of candidates must conform to democratic and transparent principles.
The registration of candidates and the examination of the signatures that
support candidates are being abused as instruments to exclude candidates
from the elections. Each candidate only requires 150 signature to validate
the candidacy, but the examination of these signatures opens the door
for administrative shenanigans. Candidates from the opposition are often
accused of having falsified signatures and are excluded from the elections
on these or similar grounds. The requirement that candidates must declare
their income also serves to exclude representatives of the opposition.
4. A free, fair and democratic campaign: The candidates must have
both legal and actual opportunities to organize their campaigns.
According to the electoral law, campaigns are financed exclusively with
public funds. Candidates in the local elections have approximately 40
euros for their campaigns. Private support for a party or a candidate
flows to the state fund that finances all elections. Campaign materials
that insult or defame incumbents are forbidden. The broad scope for defining
what materials are insulting or defaming considerably limits democratic
campaigning. Official arbitrariness in these decisions cannot be ruled
out. These conditions de facto considerably reduce freedom of speech and
the freedom to express opinions. They also serve to increase the uncertainty
of opposition election campaigns.
5. Freedom of the press: Pluralistic media and fair access to the
media are an indispensable condition for democracy.
The electoral law proclaims equal access to state media. Reality is often
different. The multiplicity of limits and restrictions hinders opposition
candidates and works to the advantage of Lukashenko-friendly incumbents.
The media, particularly audio-visual media, do not deliver balanced coverage.
6. Independent domestic and international election observers: Election
observation should be supported, and not hindered, by officeholders.
Domestic (with representatives of all candidates) and international (with
representatives of the OSCE and the Council of Europe) election observation
is an important instrument for strengthening democracy. While the electoral
law provides for domestic and international observers, but their activities
are hindered, both legally and practically, by restrictive regulations
and intransparent ordinances.
7. Campaigns oriented toward citizens and practical problems as a
starting-point for democratic regional politics: Local election campaigns
must identify local problems and interests, must propose solutions and
must formulate these proposals in programs. Eligibility for office should
be strictly tied to whether a candidate actually lives in a given electoral
district.
A workers' collective can nominate candidates who are thus primarily tied
to the firm, which in Belarus is generally state-owned. Employees of the
executive branch campaign on programs that primarily come from their current
area of authority. These thus seem unrealistic and discredit democratic
fundamentals when, for example, the leader of a local social services
authority demands improvement of the state social services for which she
is already responsible.
8. A new definition of the constitutionally-specified powers of the
local executive and legislative branches: The rights of local councils
to set and control their budgets must be strengthened. Decentralization
should be understood as an instrument for strengthening democracy from
below and for more effective recognition of state responsibility. To meet
these goals, the tax system and the federal system of financing must be
reformed and adequate regulations for expenditures must be implemented.
Part of the Soviet inheritance of Belarus is a centralized state, which
is dominated by the office of President Lukashenko. The heads of the regional
authorities are appointed by the president. The local governments' constitutionally-mandated
sphere of authority is so limited that they are also dominated by the
presidential autocracy.
Links
OSCE/ODIHR
Belarus
(Monitoring Belarusian electoral law and election observation)
Central Electoral Commission of the
Republic of Belarus
(Constitution, electoral law, etc. in Russian)
United Civil Party
(Belarusian Union of Young Politicians)
Charta 97
(Belarusian civil rights organization)
Center for Applied Policy Research, Munich
Contact
Dr. Iris Kempe
E-Mail: iris.kempe@lrz.uni-muenchen.de