July 13, 2004
BELARUSIAN OPPOSITION PARTY CALLS FOR ELECTION BOYCOTT

The Conservative Christian Party (KKhP), led by exiled Zyanon Paznyak from Poland, has called on Belarusians to boycott the legislative elections this fall, RFE/RL's Belarusian Service reported on 12 July. "Only a boycott gives the people a chance for victory, a possibility to renounce the election farce," Paznyak said in a message to a KKhP conference in Minsk earlier this month. "There are no elections whatsoever, [election] protocols record only those results that are conveyed from the top," KKhP Acting Chairman Yuras Belenki told RFE/RL. "In such a situation there is only one way of counteraction for society: to show its attitude to the farce by refusing to go to the polls." According to a recent poll by the Minsk-based Independent Institute of Socioeconomic and Political Studies, some 63 percent of voters said they will take part in the October elections.

15 august 2004
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