The spectrum is wide however there are few parties

Today there are 15 political parties, 36 trade unions and over 2 thousand civic organizations registered in Belarus. De jure there is a wide range of political movements in the country (communists, social-democrats, ecologists, liberals and others). Moreover, some movements may be represented by several parties (communists, social-democrats). The Head of the Department for civic associations of the Ministry of Justice Oleg Slizhevsky, says that half of 15 parties that are active in the country have total number of members varying from 1000 to 1500. The overall number of citizens that are members of the active 15 parties is not more than 75 thousands.

The most numerous and well-known parties are: BPF Party (Belarusian Popular Front, headed by Liavon Barshcheuski), United Civic Party (headed by Anatoly Lebedzka), Party of Communists of Belarus (the first secretary of the Central Committee Sergey Kaliakin), Conservative Christian Party BPF (headed by Zianon Pazniak), Liberal-Democratic Party of Belarus (headed by Sergey Gaidukevich), Communist Party of Belarus (the first Secretary Svetlana Golubeva), Belarusian Social-Democratic Gramada (headed by Stanislav Shushkevich), Belarusian Social-Democratic party (Gramada) (headed by Anatol Liaukovich).

“A wolf surrounded by red flags or how to walk through a mine field” 

Many leaders of political parties believe that the Law on political parties is undemocratic. The Head of the UCP Anatol Liabedzka believes that “there is a political pluralism in the country today and the UCP in particular (being in the opposition) reminds of a wolf surrounded by red flags, i.e. you can’t go there, this is forbidden too… It also reminds of walking through a mine field”. In 2008 the UCP could not manage to register a single new structure in the regions. The party received a warning for participation of its leaders in mass protest actions of entrepreneurs. The opposition parties could not rent needed premises to hold party meetings (UCP and BPF received over 20 rejections regarding renting premises requests). Several years ago many opposition parties received warnings from the Ministry of Justice for holding their meetings outside the country in a Ukrainian town Chernigov. That was the reason behind the closure of a women’s party “Nadzeya” in October 2007.

Permission and approval regarding party activities

The Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus Sergey Vazniak called the Law on Political Parties “draconian”. For instance in 2005 the changes in the legislation introduced compulsory registration of political parties and registration of their legal addresses of all regional entities in the non-inhabitant property fund. Sergey Vazniak thinks that the situation is absurd in general: in the rural area in a village for instance there is a community of three party members, prior to the amendments they could receive registration based on the registration address of one of the communists. Today the community has to rent premises for insane cost: 10 euro per square metre in order to receive registration. Naturally they do not have this money. Even if they find resources they would still have to receive permission of the local authorities and the latter without any reasoning refuse to “approve”.”

In August 2006 the Ministry of Justice of Belarus issued written warnings to six political parties: Belarusian Social Sportive Party, Belarusian Party of “Greens”, Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Gramada), BPF Party, Social Democratic Party of People’s Accord and the Republican Party for non-compliance with the clauses of the Law on Political Parties. Parties, registered in Belarus are obliged to have Minsk city and Oblast organizational structures in the majority of the regions of the Republic, i.e. at least in four oblasts.

Warning for a red horse

A warning could be issued for a minor detail. Sometimes the issue becomes an absurd. Thus several years ago the United Civic Party received an official warning of the Ministry of Justice for the alleged inconsistency of the visualization of the symbol of the party – a red horse in the official party letter heads and one registered in the Ministry of Justice.

For a few warnings the activities of the Communist Party of Belarus was suspended by the Supreme Court following a request of the Ministry of Justice for half a year, from 2 August 2007 to 2 February 2008. Later on the CPB corrected its faults.

Democracy indicator – elections

None of the members of the oppositional political parties managed to get a seat in the House of Representatives as a result of the parliamentary elections that took place in the autumn 2008. Though there were 99 representatives of the opposition who submitted documents for registration as candidates for Deputies via promotion by their parties (without collecting signatures) and the total number of candidates from parties in Belarus was 59 persons. Before the new year the newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” provided the leaders of the parties with an opportunity to comment on the thesis: “In the course of the past Parliamentary elections you party was slapped by the authorities again”. The leader of the UCP Anatol Liabedzka said the following: “From the sourced close to Lukashenko we know that the representatives of the Security Council of Belarus had information that already in the first round 19 oppositional candidates won their seats. 14 other oppositional candidates made it to the second round. However it is a different issue what was told to the people in the end...”

Ludmila Korsak