Paznyak Recounts How He Was Not Admitted to the Supreme Soviet in 1995. Says Matskevich Had Nothing to Do With It There

Zianon Paznyak, Uladzimir Matskevich. Photo: "Nasha Niva"

Zianon Paznyak commented on the "Nasha Niva" article "Three versions of one failure: how Paznyak and Matskevich clashed in the 1995 parliamentary elections." It discusses the version of Zianon Paznyak's defeat in the 1995 parliamentary elections. According to this version, if not for the intervention of Uladzimir Matskevich, who siphoned off votes, Paznyak could have won.

The politician calls such a version nonsense.

“In reality, in 1995, no one ‘clashed’ with anyone. The then-unknown Matskevich, along with six contenders, performed very poorly in the elections in the same district as Paznyak. Paznyak won in the 1st round and was in first place, while Mr. Matskevich was in fourth. But the elections did not take place then because voter turnout was below 50%,” Paznyak recounts. “Therefore, no one noticed the ‘cunning egoistic strategy’ of the then-unknown Matskevich (even if it existed). And he himself had nothing to do with it.”

As Paznyak recalls, the elections to the Supreme Soviet then, in May 1995, did not take place in more than half of Belarus's electoral districts (only 39% of deputies were elected).

Repeat elections were scheduled for November.

“I ran in the Smarhon district and won a majority of votes. But then it turned out that even here the elections ‘did not take place’ because again there ‘weren’t enough’ voters.

Only this time, my team exposed the falsification and wrote to the CEC. The CEC sent a commission for verification, which was headed by CEC Deputy Chairman Ales Zhuk (a well-known writer). Mr. Zhuk's commission uncovered a falsification by the Smarhon District Electoral Commission, which deliberately disregarded 500 votes from military unit voters.”

Paznyak writes that this would have been just enough for turnout and for his victory to be recognized.

“The farce then continued in the CEC. The CEC Chairman, the well-known lawyer Abramovich (he later falsified the Constitution to suit Lukashenka), did not make the necessary decision and refused to appeal to the Prosecutor's Office, shifting this responsibility to me. I appealed and, naturally, did not even receive a response (the system was working),” the politician recounts.

According to him, three well-known Front members also won from the BNF then: Yury Bialenki, Valiantsin Holubieu, and Hienadz Hrushavy.

“And then the regime took a desperate step: Messrs. Bialenki and Holubieu were simply unceremoniously removed from the lists of those elected. Only Hrushavy was left. Such times had come,” Paznyak writes.

He believes that if the four of them had remained in parliament, "the Lukashenka loyalists would not have been able to sabotage the impeachment in 1996, and the desperate Moscow mission to save Lukashenka, led by Chernomyrdin, would have flown back to Moscow 'empty-handed'."

“We knew how and what needed to be done. And we would have done it. The Front was still strong. People would have listened to us, and not to Sharetski and all those frightened individuals,” he claims.

“A dire situation arose, it must be said. Well, Mr. Matskevich had absolutely nothing to do with it here. After the 1st round in May, where he took 4th place, he wasn't even mentioned in the news then,” Paznyak writes.

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