Opposition calls on Belarusians to get to streets on September 28

The United Pro-Democracy Forces (UDF) – a block of opposition parties in Belarus – look set to withdraw their candidates on September 23. The authorities ignored a UDF statement, demanding the Central Elections Commission to enter additional opposition members to local election commissions. As of today, opposition representatives account for only 0.07 percent of seats in election commissions.

However, this is not the final decision to pull out of the race. The boycott is yet to be approved by UDF’s Political Council on September 21. However, Popular Front leader Lyavon Barscheuski does not believe that the next meeting of the Political Council could change anything significantly.

Barscheuski: “(Popular Front’s) council recommended our candidate to stay in the race up to September 23. Naturally, those who finish their campaign earlier will pull out earlier. We will have another meeting of the party’s council on September 20. Definitely, there could be debates and various statements then, but I don’t think that the party’s council will change it previous decision (to withdraw).

Different from Mr. Barscheuski  who has refrained from using the word “boycott”, Zmitser Dashkevich, the leader of Youth Front says his group pronounced this word from the very beginning of the parliamentary campaign.

Zmitser Dashkevich: “The elections cannot be regarded as democratic already now. Political prisoners remain in jails. New criminal cases are opened. Peaceful demonstrators – children and women – are beaten on the streets. We announced from the very beginning that the votes of Belarusians were stolen. We cannot expect any democratic vote count. Therefore, we announced a boycott”.

Meanwhile, Zmitser Dashkevich has called on Belarusians to boycott voting and come to October Square in Minsk at 2000 on September 28, instead and to demand new elections.

Zmitser Bandarenka, the leader of European Belarus, has joined this call. He lost his last hopes for democratic elections after August 8. He remains surprised why some representatives of the opposition has continued taking part in the election campaign and are not going to withdraw from the race.

Zmitser Bandarenka: “Why on earth Kalyakin, Statkevich and Lyabedzka are continuing to participate in the electoral farce. We hear from Mr. Lyabedzka as saying: “The elections are not fair, but voters are not to blame”. This is the same as saying: “Rotten meat is sold in a grocery, but customers are not to blame and have to eat it”.

In the view of Mr. Bandarenka, a couple of oppositionists who will possibly get MP seats will play the role of poodles. Only those who are compromised by Lukashenka can be allowed into the parliament.