85 (19 % of the total amount of nominations submitted) initiative groups have been denied registration in the current election campaign, which is considerably more than in the previous elections of 2008 (5 %) and 2004 (11 %), says Lidziya Yarmoshyna, chair of the Central Election Commission, at a meeting with Sergey Lebedev, head of the CIS’s observation mission.

According to Mrs. Yarmoshyna, denials affected 15 potential candidates, part of whom were nominated in several constituencies at a time.

She also said 330 persons registered their initiative groups. 66 of them are members of various political parties: pro-government movements (The Communist Party of Belarus, the Republican Party of Labour and Justice) and opposition ones (The Fair World – 28 groups, Belarusian Popular Front – 12 groups, United Civil Party – 7 groups and Social Democratic Party “Hramada” – 9 groups).