Legislative Election in Belarus (2000)

These elections to the 110-seat House of Representatives were the first to take place in Belarus after the 1996 consultative referendum, whose questions however changed the Constitution through the efforts of President Alexander Lukashenko. In the fall of 1999, fruitless negotiations were held between Lukashenko’s representatives and the opposition on access to government broadcasting, electoral law, and parliament’s powers. In January 2000, Lukashenko called for elections to the National Assembly ^[1] and approved the Electoral Code (CI), and in June made amendments to it. Seven of the nine opposition parties decided to boycott the election.

The EC of April 24, 2000, with the June amendments, does not provide for multi-party representation in the Central Election Commission and limited election campaigning. The third part of Section 167 of the 1984 Administrative Code continues to be used to prosecute calls for a boycott of elections, which entailed the condemnation of more than 100 people on the eve of the elections.

According to the Electoral Code, in order to elect a deputy in the first round, more than 50% of the voters registered in the electoral district and one of the nominees received more than half of the votes cast. If none of the nominees won more than half of the votes, but more than half of the voters voted, the second round was between the two nominees who received the most votes. If in the second round the turnout did not reach more than 25% of voters, re-elections took place along with a new registration of nominees.

Election Commissions

The elections were carried out by the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CEC), 110 district election commissions (DECs) and 6,693 precinct election commissions (PECs). The composition of election commissions was appointed by the executive branch mainly from among officials and employees of government enterprises. Of the 330 posts of chairmen, their deputies and secretaries of the OIC, officials and heads of government enterprises occupied 86%. On September 11, 2000, Lukashenko appointed an additional 9 non-voting members to the CEC from the political parties that participated in the elections. Including there were 2 representatives from opposition parties - the Liberal Democratic (LDP) and the Communist (PKB).

Candidate Registration

Nomination was carried out by parties, labor collectives and by collecting 1,000 voter signatures. 550 out of 768 candidates registered with DECs. Of the 218 candidates who were denied registration, 146 submitted complaints to the CEC. 23 candidates registered with the CEC. Of the 123 nominees rejected by the CEC, 85 filed complaints with the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus. The Supreme Court registered only 5 candidates. Thus, 578 candidates achieved registration. However, later 11 candidates withdrew from the election, registration of another nominee was canceled. 20% of nominees from parties and work collectives refused registration. DECs also refused to register about 50% of self-nominated people who collected more than 1,000 voter signatures and mainly belonged to the opposition. About half of the 578 registered nominees came from 9 parties, including 7 pro-government and 2 opposition parties - the LDP and the PKB. Another 7 opposition parties boycotted the elections, although the Social Democratic Party Narodnaya Gromada (SDP "NG") allowed its members to vote as independent nominees. In total, 20 counted nominees came from the opposition. Accounting was refused on the basis of errors in the declarations of nominees about their income and property, as well as 15% of doubtful signatures collected in support ^[2] . At a September 18 press conference, CEC Chairperson Lidia Yermoshina stated:

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Voting

Officials called for early voting within 5 days before election day. At this time, the election commissions worked in part, in which only 2 members were to be present. Ballot boxes were not guarded at night. Election commissions had no obligation to issue copies of protocols of voting results to observers and representatives of nominees, which made it impossible to challenge fake voting results in court.

The official election campaign began after the registration of the nominees on September 14th. However, some candidates began their campaign only after satisfaction of the relevant complaints in the Supreme Court on September 28. For each constituency there were about 5 nominees. The EC forbade the placement in the campaign of “insults and slander against the officials of the Republic and other nominees” and provided for prosecution for “false information”. Nominees were also liable for the activities of their supporters. However, Lukashenko’s statement on state television on September 22, in which he called “fools and thieves” the former prime minister Mikhail Chigir and the chairman of the Social Democratic Party Nikolai Statkevich , who were candidates, did not entail any responsibility. After the Freedom Marches on October 1 and 8, which were carried out by supporters of the boycott, several of its participants were arrested. Local authorities have allowed less than half of the requests for marches. In total, more than 100 supporters of the boycott were convicted of picketing on the third part of Article 167 of the Administrative Code.

State television and the press, subordinate to the Presidential Administration, had a dominant position. The opposition was not able to convey to them through the voters the reason for the boycott of the elections. According to the decree of the CEC of September 11, the nominee allowed 5-minute speeches on government radio and television, as well as posting in one of six government newspapers their alerts in the amount of 2 printed pages. However, on October 14, in a letter to the editor-in-chief of the Orshanskaya newspaper, CEC chairman Lidia Yermoshina banned the announcement of the nominee before removing the mention of the “autocratic government” and “political persecution of the media in Belarus”.

During a search of the Magic non-governmental printing house on September 13, the non-governmental newspaper Rabochy was seized, calling for a boycott of the parliamentary elections. The owner and head of the printing house was charged with the third part of Article 167 of the Administrative Code, but the charge was dropped on September 18. The government froze the printing bill on October 11th. On October 13, the government threatened with the selection of printing equipment in order to allegedly recover taxes overdue by the representative office of the Soros Foundation, which was closed in 1997, that the printing house acted to philanthropists. In the program "Secret Springs of Politics" on September 21, the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) was compared with the "fascist collaborators" during World War II . On October 7, BPF chairman Zenon Poznyak was declared a “pig well fed Western food”. On October 9 and 10, in the program Panorama, the presenter claims that the Freedom March failed. The journalist also added that the opposition will need Western bombs, not money, to blow up the existing political system. BT also violated article 46 of the EC, which prohibited public polls, twice on October 5 and 9. On October 12 and 13, in the program “Dolls”, a BT journalist compared opposition leaders with National Socialists . Oppositions have failed to respond to insults, accusations and slander in government publications. However, 2 representatives of the opposition - Stanislav Shushkevich from the Social Democratic Gromada and Alexander Dobrovolsky from the United Civil Party (UCP), were broadcast on the Russian television channel ORT a week before the election. They explained the reason for the boycott of the elections and complained about the lack of access to government broadcasting in Belarus.

Following the 2000 parliamentary elections, six parties have their own representative in the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus: ^[3]

• Communist Party of Belarus - 6
• Belarusian Agrarian Party - 4
• Republican Party of Labor and Justice - 1
• Belarusian Social and Sports Party - 1
• Social Democratic Party of Popular Accord - 1
• Liberal Democratic Party - 1 (after the election, member of the LDP deputy Alexei Vaganov left the party)
• United Civil Party - 2 (both deputies - Vladimir Novosyad and Yuri Morozov - suspended their membership in the UCP).

• Political Parties of Belarus

• Elections to the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus 2000
• List of deputies of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus of the second convocation