Brest: No opposition on territorial election commissions
Most of the seats in the newly created election commissions of Lieninski and Maskoŭski districts of Brest belong to representatives of pro-government associations.
A joint meeting of the Brest City Executive Committee and the Council of Deputies, which formed the territorial election commissions, lasted only 12 minutes. During this time, participants of the meeting (without discussion) managed to create two district election commissions, each consisting of 13 people. According to local human rights activist Uladzimir Vialichkin, there are no new faces in the composition of the election commissions: the commissioners are approved candidates, which were involved in previous election campaigns, while many of the commission members are employees of the city government agencies.
Nina Matysik, head of the department of organizational and personnel work of the executive committee explained why preference was given to representatives of such public organizations as the NGO "Belaya Rus", the Belarusian National Youth Union, the Women's and Veterans' Unions. "During the formation of the commissions, the meeting participants primarily paid attention to the competence of the candidates and the size of the organizations they represent,” said she. “For example, the Brest city organization of veterans has more than 58 thousand members, and the Youth Union - more than 17 thousand activists. More than four thousand people are members of the NGO "Belaya Rus" and almost as many members of the Belarusian Union of Women.” Therefore, according to the official, the representatives of these organizations were included in the district election commissions.
As for the political parties, there were six nominees to the election commission of the Lieninski district, and five – to the Maskoŭski district commission. As a result, the territorial election commissions feature two nominees from the Communist Party of Belarus and one from the Republican Party of Labor and Justice. Liudmila Dzenisenka, local leader of the Belarusian Party of the Left "Fair World", expressed surprise that the commission would not include members of the party, whose leader (Siarhei Kaliakin) has registered an initiative group to run for President.