The electoral procedure can be defined as the legally regulated activity of individuals, institutions, organizations and groups for preparing and holding elections to state and local government bodies. In Belarus the citizens elect the deputies of the Chamber of the Representatives and local Councils of Deputies, as well as the President of the Republic. Majority system is established. According to the Constitution (articles 65-68), the suffrage is universal, free, equal and direct via secret ballot. The elections are organized by a standing body – the Central Commission on Elections and Republican Referendums, which is formed on a par: six members are appointed by the President; the equal number is elected by Council of the Republic. The head of the Commission is appointed by the President by approbation of the Council of the Republic.
Elections to all the three Belarusian elected bodies (namely, the Parliament, the local Council of Deputies and the President) have common, as well as specific, features. Let us take up the topical issue of the order of Presidential elections to be conducted on March 19, 2006.
Following are the documents constituting the legal basis for the elections of the President of the Republic of Belarus: the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus (art. 80-82, Chapter 3 “The President of the Republic of Belarus”), the Electoral Code [1] (EC), the law “On the Central Committee of the Republic of Belarus on elections and conducting republican referendums” (CEC), the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of April 4, 2001 ¹ 457 on the adoption of an income and property statement form and the Regulation of the Chamber of Representatives of December 19, 2005 “On calling an election of the President of the Republic of Belarus”. Among the statutory acts of the electoral legislation are CEC regulations, namely the Regulation of December 27, 2005 ¹ 50 “On the sample of a ballot box for 2006 Presidential elections”, the Regulation of December 27, 2005 ¹ 49 “On the seals of territorial and district committees for 2006 Presidential elections”, the Regulation of December 27, 2005 ¹ 47 “On the Supervisory Council for the control over the electioneering in mass media”, the Regulation of December 16, 2005 ¹ 37 “On the implementation of art. 13 part 3 of the Electoral Code during the preparation for and the conduction of the Presidential Elections of 2006”, the Regulation of December 16, 2005 ¹ 36 “On the exposition of applying the provisions of article 61 of the Electoral Code, which stipulates for the procedure of collecting signatures for the persons recommended as candidates for 2006 Presidential elections”, the Regulation of December 16, 2005 ¹ 35 “On the exposition of applying article 35 part 2 of the Electoral Code, which stipulates for the procedure of nominating of the representatives for territorial committees for 2006 Presidential elections by political parties and other public organizations”, the Regulation of December 16, 2005 ¹ 34 “On the exposition of the provisions of part 2 article 61 of the Electoral Code, which stipulates for the procedure of providing the documents to register the initiative group for 2006 Presidential elections”[2]. As it is seen here, the regulations of CEC play a significant role in the system of acts, regulating the sphere of electoral procedure.
The electoral procedure can be divided into several stages, each of them characterized by an appropriate legal basis, a settled term of conducting and distinct outcomes. The initial stage may be labeled as declaring elections. In the Republic of Belarus the right to call elections is vested in the Parliament, in particular, in the House of the Representatives, which adopts the corresponding Regulation not later than before the five months of the previous president’s term end. The following stages of the electoral procedure (on the example of 2006 Presidential elections) are:
1. Nomination of representatives to the regional, Minsk city, district, town and city district election committees (Art.34 EC). Submission of the protocols of public congresses (conferences), sessions or citizens’ applications about the nomination of representatives to the committees to the organs composing the committees should be made at the latest 25 January 2005.
2. Composition of territorial committees (Art.27,34-37 EC) (no later than 80 days before the election day) – at the latest 28 December 2005. Regional and Miensk city committees are made up by the presidiums of regional Miensk city councils and special executive committees, while district, town and city district committees are established by the presidiums of district and city councils and special executive committees numbered 13.
3. Establishment of election precincts (Art.18) (no later than 2 months before the election day) – at the latest 17 January 2006. Election precincts are defined by special local executive commissions (district administrations) in co-ordination with respective territorial committees. Precincts may count from 20 to 3000 voters. Among regular places they can be established in sanatoriums, hospitals, military units. For those citizens being abroad precincts are established by the heads of respective diplomatic representation (consular offices).
4. Nomination of representatives to the divisional election committees (Art.35 EC). Submission of the protocols of public congresses (conferences), sessions or citizens’ applications about the nomination of representatives to the divisional election committees to the organs composing the committees should be made at the latest 29 January 2006.
5. Establishment of divisional election committees. (Art.35 EC) (no later than 45 days prior to the election day) – at the latest 1 February 2006. Election committees are made up by the district, city executive committees (district administrations) and consist of 5-19 members.
6. Submission of the list of members of an initiative group to the Central committee. (Art.61 EC). An initiative group is created for the collection of voters’ signatures to support a presidential contender. Together with the list of members should be submitted an application for the registration of an initiative group (no later than 85 days prior to the Election Day) – at the latest 23 December 2005. The number of members is not limited.
7. Registration of initiative groups (Art.61 EC) and distribution of certificates and subscription lists to the members of initiative groups – within 5 days after the submission of an application for registration.
8. Nomination to presidential contenders (Art.61 EC) (begins 80 days and finishes 50 days before the Election Day) – from 29 December 2005 to 27 January 2006.
According to the current legislation 100 thousand voters’ signatures are needed to register a candidate for the presidency (Art.61 EC). Such practice is familiar to several European states. Thus, in Poland a candidate should collect the same 100 thousand voters’ signatures, in Bulgaria – 15 thousand voters’ signatures, and in France – 500 signatures of individuals possessing special elector mandates (not common voters), e.g. members of parliament or Paris city council. It is significant that in accordance with the Constitution and the law “On Presidential Elections in Belarus” [3] of 1994 a candidate for the presidency could be nominated not solely by means of collecting 100 thousand voters’ signatures but also by collecting at least 70 signatures of deputies of the Supreme Council (Art.5 of the law).
For a presidential contender the collection of signatures is a difficult stage, because the term is rather short – less than a month – and election agitation in the mean time is prohibited. Obviously, these legal norms are designed to ensure that only a well-known citizen who enjoys certain political authority can be nominated for presidency. However, the ban on agitation at this stage considerably hinders political career of a new figure and also creates a situation when voters would support the candidate if they got acquainted with his program but the latter is prohibited by the law.
9. Submission of subscription lists to district, town and city district committees (no later than 50 days before the Election Day) – at the latest 27 January 2006. At this stage the lists are verified. If more than 15% of the verified signatures are acknowledged invalid the Central Election Committee refuses to register the candidate and debars him/her from the next stage.
10. Submission of the documents required for registration to the Central Election Committee – from 28 January to 11 February 2006. To be registered as a candidate for the presidency one should submit to the Central Election Committee the following documents specified by the Art.68 p.4 EC: the protocols of regional and Miensk city election committees confirming the validity of no less than 100 thousand voters’ signatures for the nomination of the candidate, the candidate’s written statement confirming his will to be put to the vote, the candidate’s biography and income and property statement in accordance with the form provided by the Council of Ministers.
11. Registration of the candidate for the presidency (begins 35 days and finishes 25 days before the Election Day) – from 12 to 21 February 2006. The law (Art.80 of the Constitution, Art.57 p.1 EC, Art. 5 of the law “On Presidency”[4]) defines that to be eligible for the presidency an individual must be a citizen of the Republic of Belarus, not younger than 35 years old, possessing the right to vote and permanently residing in Belarus for at least 10 years before the Election Day.
The Constitutional Court stated its position [5] regarding the definition “citizen of the Republic of Belarus permanently residing in the Republic of Belarus” which is used in Art. 80 of the Constitution. The Constitutional Court pointed out that when defining the place of permanent residence it is necessary to take into consideration not only the place of the person’s factual location at a certain period of time (in Belarus or abroad) but also his/her intention to regard the place as his/her permanent residence. The essence of this definition is clarified by the aim of going abroad: whether the departure is temporary or the person emigrates for permanent residence. As a temporary leave can be regarded the following: going abroad on business, holiday, for study, medical treatment or other good reasons that can testify to the temporality of being abroad and to the preservation of permanent residence in Belarus.
12. Registration of the authorized representatives of the candidate for the presidency (Art.76 EC) – after the registration of the candidate until the Election Day. The candidate has the right to register up to 30 authorized representatives [6].
13. Electioneering (Art.45-47 EC) – after the registration of the candidate until the penult day to the election. The Central Election Committee has established the Supervisory Board for the period of presidential election 2006. The Board supervises media for the observance of the norms of the Electoral Code, and the law “On Press and other Mass Media” during their coverage of the preparation and holding of the presidential election and in case of need submits its proposition to the Central Election Committee. Furthermore the Board has to ensure equal possibilities of the candidates concerning the access to the media and the conditions of electioneering. The Board is to settle the disputes concerning the use of the media during the election campaign.
14. Composition of the electoral register (Art.19 EC) – until 3 March 2006. The right to vote is possessed by the citizens of Belarus who reached 18 years of age with the exception of persons acknowledged by the court legally incapable and those who are contained in the institutions of confinement. To the number of people who are debared from voting belong also persons under arrest.
15. Voting (Art.50-54 EC), including pre-term voting which begins no later than 5 days before the Election Day – 19 March 2006 (prolonged/pre-term voting begins 14 March 2006).
By general rule voting takes place at the polling station on the Election Day from 8 am to 8 pm. Only voters, members of the divisional election committee, national and international observers, authorized representatives of the candidates and other persons allowed by the Central Election Committee (Art.13 EC).
With a view to ensure secrecy of the ballot the law provides that polling stations should be equipped with polling booths or rooms for secret ballot. Art.9 EC gives the oblique definition of “secret ballot”: “control of the voters’ declaration of will is prohibited”. This is a ban for everybody but for the voter himself/herself this is just a proposition of law and therefore s/he may will to refuse the proposition, permitting, so to say, control of his/her declaration of will. Therefore, if a voter enters the polling booth together with his/her relative or friend or votes not entering the booth s/he does not commit an infraction.
As for the language of the ballot-paper, Art.72 EC requires that ballot-papers should be printed in Belarusan or Russian languages. At that, the law “On Election of President of the Republic of Belarus” of 1994 required that ballot-papers should be written only in Belarusan language (Art.29 of the law) [7].
16. Counting of votes (Art.55 EC) (on the Election Day after 8 pm) – until 29 March 2006. Elections are considered not valid if more than 50% of the electorate have voted. The president is recognized elected if he is supported by more than 50% of those who voted.
The Central Election Committee on 27 December 2005 passed a regulation about the order of preserving documents from the presidential election 2006. In accordance with the regulation subscription lists and ballot-papers are preserved by executive committees (administrations) of the lower level in the course of 6 months after the Election Day and then they are discarded.
17. Determining and publishing the electoral results (Art. 82 of the Constitution, Art. 79 EC). Not later then after 10 days since the end of voting procedure CEC determines the results of elections, of which a special protocol is signed. Election is considered to be valid if more than a half of those included on the lists
