Local elections: only Minsk shows initiative, regions are virtually excluded

The local election campaign in Belarus is coming to a halt – early voting starts in 10 days. Still, the overwhelming majority of candidates have not yet started a fully-fledged election campaign – out of 22,000 candidates for deputies, as few as 490 candidates for deputies opened the score.

At that, political activity is concentrated exclusively in Minsk, participation of the regions in the electoral process is extremely low: out of 8,395 announced mass events 7,452 are held in Minsk while as few as 11% are carried out in the remaining six regions combined. So far the authorities have managed to successfully implement their electoral scenario which prevents society from being ’politicised’ at the stage of election canvassing. Mobilisation of local authorities, pro-governmental NGOs and state-run mass media is foreseen at the stage of voting to ensure the required voter turnout.