16 February 2010
Belarusians should nominate people able to take care of voters’ interests
VITEBSK, 16 February (BelTA) – The ability of people, who are nominated to represent people’s interests, to take care of voters’ interests in their constituency should be the foremost consideration. The opinion was voiced by Secretary of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Nikolai Lozovik. He took part in a seminar for chairmen and secretaries of territorial and constituency election commissions, heads of organization, personnel and ideology departments of regional administrations of the Vitebsk Oblast on 16 February. The CEC Secretary pointed out that political parties had put more efforts into promoting their representatives onto election commissions. He added that, however, some parties had cared more about statistics than the ability of those people to work as part of the commissions. Nikolai Lozovik pointed out that people, who are nominated as candidates for deputies, should be the people able to take care of the interests of their voters. Nikolai Lozovik reminded that the Electoral Code had been considerably amended. The amendments touch upon all stages of the election process. In particular, new procedures are used to form election commissions and promote candidates from political parties. No permissions are now necessary to hold meetings with voters. The voting procedure has not changed but requirements for counting ballots are now stricter. Ballots used in early voting, those used in home voting, and those cast on the election day are recorded independently. All in all, the election process changes have facilitated the nomination of candidates, registration of an initiative group, allowing nominating more people and thus giving voters more choice, said Nikolai Lozovik.БЕЛТА
