Slogan Censored with TV Caption

On August 16, can­di­dates to Par­lia­ment went to give speech­es on local TV in Homel – these were five min­utes of free air­time on state TV, guar­an­teed by elec­toral leg­is­la­tion.  The can­di­date of the Unit­ed Civ­il Par­ty Uladz­imir Niapom­ni­ashchykh was wear­ing a T‑shirt with the slo­gan “For Belarus with­out Lukashenko”. How­ev­er, in the video record­ing, the sec­ond half of the slo­gan was hid­den by a cap­tion with the candidate’s name. This trans­formed his slo­gan into “For Belarus”, the one that Alexan­der Lukashen­ka used at his elec­tions in 2010.

In 2012, at the pre­vi­ous par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, Uladz­imir Niapom­ni­ashchykh, also wear­ing the same T‑shirt, was banned from TV at all; the crew demand­ed him to get dressed into some­thing else.

At the end of the speech, though, the can­di­date pro­nounced the slo­gan. In his address, Uladz­imir Niapom­ni­ashchykh said: “Good after­noon, so called vot­ers. I say “so called” – as there are no elec­tions in Belarus.” The whole record­ing of his speech can be viewed here.

His oppo­nents in con­stituen­cy No 31 are for­mer head of the region­al KGB Ivan Korzh, an activist of the left­ist par­ty Fair World Ali­ak­san­dr Sukharuchanka, and a can­di­date from the LDP Aleh Dan­skikh.