United Civil Party of Belarus

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Belarus
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The United Civic Party of Belarus (Belarusian: Аб'ядна́ная грамадзя́нская па́ртыя Белару́сі, Abjadnanaja hramadzianskaja partyja Biełarusi) is a liberal party in Belarus. The party opposes the rule of Alexander Lukashenko, generally participates in the country's elections, but doesn't have a single member in parliament, explaining it with unfairness of election process, a claim international election monitors have lent some credence to.

The party's chairman (as of 2005) is Anatoly Lebedko; its deputy chairman is Alexander Dobrovolsky. Lebedko represents the party most visibly in both domestic and international settings, and has been involved in numerous altercations with the Belarusian authorities; see Anatoly Lebedko for details.

At the last legislative elections, 13-17 October 2004, the party was part of the People's Coalition 5 Plus, that didn't secure any seat. These elections fell according to the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission [1] significantly short of OSCE commitments. Universal principles and constitutionally guaranteed rights of expression, association and assembly were seriously challenged, calling into question the Belarusian authorities’ willingness to respect the concept of political competition on a basis of equal treatment. According to this mission principles of an inclusive democratic process, whereby citizens have the right to seek political office without discrimination, candidates to present their views without obstruction, and voters to learn about them and discuss them freely, were largely ignored.