MINSK, 2 February (BelTA) – Deputy Head of the Department for Legal, Analytical and Methodological Work of the Office of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Ivan Tolkach told BelTA's The Nation Speaks project how many prospective candidates were refused registration for the elections to the House of Representatives and local councils of deputies.
“A total of 298 prospective candidates were nominated to the House of Representatives, 265 of them were registered and 33 were not. Eight of them withdrew their applications, and 25 had their candidate applications rejected,” said Ivan Tolkach.
According to him, among the reasons for rejecting a candidate application was improper execution of documents. “You can be nominated in three ways: via signature collection, by a labor collective and by a political party. Everything is more or less clear with labor collectives and political parties: you need to hold a meeting in a legally established manner, correctly fill in documents and submit them. At the same time, collected signatures must be checked for authenticity,” Ivan Tolkach informed.
In particular, some voters who put their signatures on a nomination petition did not belong to the respective constituency. In other words, it is not enough to live in a particular constituency, you should be registered there to be able to vote. “During the signature verification process, we check 20% of the signatures required for registration in accordance with the law. If 15% or more of them are not valid, another 15% is checked. And if, by the sum of these two checks, the number of invalid signatures exceeds 15%, a candidate application is rejected,” Ivan Tolkach explained.
A total of 18,999 people were nominated to local councils of deputies, and 18,802 of them were registered as candidates. “The share of refusals and application withdrawals is insignificant. This share is the lowest than in the previous campaigns. It is clear that people took a more responsible approach to signature collection and paperwork,” Ivan Tolkach concluded.
“A total of 298 prospective candidates were nominated to the House of Representatives, 265 of them were registered and 33 were not. Eight of them withdrew their applications, and 25 had their candidate applications rejected,” said Ivan Tolkach.
According to him, among the reasons for rejecting a candidate application was improper execution of documents. “You can be nominated in three ways: via signature collection, by a labor collective and by a political party. Everything is more or less clear with labor collectives and political parties: you need to hold a meeting in a legally established manner, correctly fill in documents and submit them. At the same time, collected signatures must be checked for authenticity,” Ivan Tolkach informed.
In particular, some voters who put their signatures on a nomination petition did not belong to the respective constituency. In other words, it is not enough to live in a particular constituency, you should be registered there to be able to vote. “During the signature verification process, we check 20% of the signatures required for registration in accordance with the law. If 15% or more of them are not valid, another 15% is checked. And if, by the sum of these two checks, the number of invalid signatures exceeds 15%, a candidate application is rejected,” Ivan Tolkach explained.
A total of 18,999 people were nominated to local councils of deputies, and 18,802 of them were registered as candidates. “The share of refusals and application withdrawals is insignificant. This share is the lowest than in the previous campaigns. It is clear that people took a more responsible approach to signature collection and paperwork,” Ivan Tolkach concluded.
