На русском языке:
Мнение. Андрей Елисеев об отставке Ермошиной и роли ЦИК
На беларускай мове:
Меркаванне. Андрэй Елісееў пра адстаўку Ярмошынай і ролю ЦВК
Andrei Yeliseev, a political analyst and investigative journalist, wrote a post on his Facebook page, where he talks about the resignation of Lidiya Ermoshina and the role of the CEC. We quote his words unchanged.
Ermoshina has long been a vivid embodiment of electoral manipulations, but it is important to understand that the role of the Central Election Commission in conducting «elections» is practically zero.
The role of the CEC in the electoral process is pretty much the same as the role of the Belarusian parliament in the legislative process. Almost all legislative initiatives come from the bowels of the presidential administration with some help from specialized staff in the ministries. The task of «parliamentarians» is to press a button, the maximum of arbitrary activity is to offer a couple of mini-amendments and put a semicolon in the fifth paragraph.
If the parliament and the CEC just disappear into oblivion tomorrow, this will not affect the political processes at all. Their role is extremely tiny and fake – exactly as it is written in paradigmatic sultanism, which is the political regime in modern Belarus.
The entire electoral process from beginning to end is controlled by the "vertical" of power with the presidential administration at the head, with an active participation of special services. And the CEC is almost non-decisive, albeit nominally the dominant body, which only churns out the decisions made in the administration.
The following statement may seem strange, but the essence is as follows: the most important factor in fair elections at any level (presidential, parliamentary, local) is not even in the head of the CEC and its composition, but in the presence of truly independent and having real powers local authorities! It is they who control the composition of precinct election commissions and interact with them.
And here, by local authorities I mean, of course, not members of local councils, but the heads of administrations of cities and districts, that is, the current «executive committee» heads. This is the basis of the «vertical» of power, which is one of the three key pillars of the regime along with the security forces and the Kremlin.
