A couple of days ago, Ukrainian independent election observation organization, Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), published their report on the monitoring results of election campaign from December 26 till January 26 of 2006.
CVU assumes the elections run so far so good. Minor violations occur, parties seem to be unprepared to participate in elections on proportional basis. According to the document, the evidences of such situation are formation of nominal blocs instead of ideological, irresponsible attitude toward presenting candidates to the composition of the election commissions, lack of inner-party discipline and democracy in forming candidates’ lists. But still, the election campaign is going on freely and has a competitive character.
Belarus’ elections, which happen to coincide with the parliamentary race in neighboring Ukraine, are different… Way different! Belarusian Partnerstva (Partnership) stands for our version of CVU. Unlike their Ukrainian counterparts, Belarusian independent election monitors hardly will come up with any optimistic reports. The leadership of Partnerstva is currently in jail. The possible charges could be managing an unregistered organization or even a libel upon the president. Partnerstva members throughout the country are chased after as if they were wild animals or extremists. And their real “guilt” is that they want to organize a fair, nonpartisan monitoring of this already off-the-wall campaign.