Mr. Zianon Pazniak and his initiative group are continuing to participate in the electoral campign and to mobilize the society on the People’s poll

January 27, this year the initiative group of Mr. Zianon Pazniak has finished to collect the signatures of the citizens with a positive result – more than 130 thousand signatures have been collected. The same day Mr. Zianon Pazniak has announced to the Central Electoral Commission that his group will not hand over the collected signatures to the electoral commissions and has explained this position of his group.

The actions by the regime during the collection of the signatures and the regime’s plan of the pseudo-elections witness that the regime didn’t take into consideration the variant of the equal possibilities for all the pretenders on the presidential post. The regime and Moscow are afraid of the possible return of Mr. Zianon Pazniak to Belarus. It would be possible after the registration of Mr. Zianon Pazniak the candidate to the presidency. Because of that the regime has used its Central Electoral Commission (CEC) in order to not register his candidature. The CEC has used as a cause of the non-registration the legal activity of the Party members and the initiative group which informed the society about the People’s Poll. The procedure of the People’s Poll represents the legitimate right of the citizens on the free expression of their will in accordance with the Constitution and the electoral Law. The People’s Poll gives the real possibility to stop the Lukashenka’s mechanism of the electoral frauds. The next stage will be the new democratic elections without Lukashenka.

The regime has tried to stop the information campaign about the People’s Poll and to subordinate the activity of our initiative group to its scheme of the pseudo-elections. January 6, this year Mr. M. Lazavik, secretary of the CEC, has made a verbal warning to our initiative group and expressed the illegal request to stop the information campaign. January 18, this year the CEC has made just a written warning because of the information campaign about the People’s Poll and presented us the ultimatum – our initiative group should stop the information campaign about the People’s Poll, otherwise the collected signatures would be recognized as illegal.

We could not obey the ultimatum because it would signify the recognition of the legitimacy of the pseudo-elections as well the assistance of the “elegant” victory of Lukashenka. After the ultimatum it became clear that Mr. Pazniak would not be registered even if we would stop the information campaign about the People’s Poll. We have definitively understood the sense of the phrase by Mrs. L. Yarmoshyna, chairperson of the CEC: “Pazniak doesn’t have right to participate in these presidential elections” (newspaper “Obozrevatel”, December 23, 2005).

Because of that we continued the information campaign about the People’s Poll more intensively. The regime has used the police and the KGB in order to stop the information campaign and to prepare the decision of the non-registration of Mr. Zianon Pazniak. The regime has started the illegal repressions against the members of the initiative group: the intimidations, provocations, detentions and arrests of the collectors of signatures. In accordance with the “supreme order” (mentioned by the police officers which executed the repressions) the police prepared the minutes, reports and acts and handed them over to the CEC. Thus the CEC has prepared all the formal arguments in order to not register Mr. Zianon Pazniak.

In these circumstances it would be unwise to hand over the collected signatures to the electoral commissions. We could not act as the pawns in the political game of the regime and to permit to trait us in this manner. Beside of this after the warning by the CEC we could not hand over the collected signatures with the names and addresses of the citizens in order not to cause the repressions against them. (Several facts of the repressions have been registered). We cannot permit to the regime to intimidate the elite of our society which supports the candidate of the Belarusan people Mr. Zianon Pazniak and the idea of the People’s Poll. Because of that it was decided not to hand over the signatures of the citizens to the CEC.

But this fact doesn’t witness that Mr. Zianon Pazniak has left the electoral campaign and his initiative group has stopped its activity. On the contrary! We are participating in the electoral campaign with our conception of the People’s Poll. The first stage of this electoral campaign has been finished. More than 130 thousand citizens do support us. We continue the electoral struggle.

The initiative group of Mr. Zianon Pazniak will coordinate the formation of the structures of the National Civic Commission (NCC). Our main task on the next stage is the continuation of the information campaign about the People’s Poll as well as the formation of the structures of the NCC which will collect the results of the People’s Poll. We call all the active citizens to join this activity.

Information commission of the Conservative Christian Party – BPF
January 27, 2006

30/1/2006 › English