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By Lisa McAdams
Moscow
30 January 2006
The signature-collecting campaign for presidential hopefuls in Belarus has come to an end, with four candidates expected to be officially confirmed soon. The pre-election campaign has been tense and there is no sign the remaining weeks leading up to the March 19 election will be any different.
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The Central Election Commission in Belarus has until February 11 to publish the official list of candidates accepted to compete to become the next president of Belarus.
Alexander Lukashenko
Few if any observers expect many surprises. Other than front-runner and incumbent1, Alexander Lukashenko, only three other people are expected to be in the race. They are the candidate for the united Democratic opposition2, Alexander Milinkevich, along with two other candidates who are described as being close to the government of Alexander Kozulin and Sergei Gaidukevich.
Within the past few weeks, two other opposition candidates, Alexander Voitovich and Zenon Pozniak, quit the race, saying they doubted it would be free and fair.
Dr. Oleg Maynayev is an independent political analyst3 who heads Belarus first independent think-tank in Minsk. Dr. Maynayev tells VOA that while he does not believe anyone other than President Lukashenko can realistically win the race, he says the opposition can still make important gains.
Alexander Milinkevich
"If Milinkevich succeeds to get around 30 percent, people will get information that there is another politician who disagrees with the existing regime, who disagrees with President Lukashenko, who expresses their disagreement and [that] there is a person who concentrates their expectations, who expresses their wills, and this person has some grounds, some capacity, and he could after the election try to go further," he said. "So, people could get hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Still, Maynayev notes that any gains for the opposition must be looked at in a long-term sense. In other words, he says he sees no quick fix, such as a so-called color revolution for Belarus, like those that swept pro-reform leaders to power in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over long-standing Soviet-style leaders.
"I don't see too much prospect4 for that [for] various reasons," he said. "Belarussian society is not ready for that and [a] secondly5 extremely important factor is that the existing regime in Belarus is much more harsh than in Georgia, or Ukraine, or even Kyrgyzstan. It means, it [the government] will respond much more brutally6, including maybe orders if not to kill people, to arrest and beat them and for mass repressions7. No doubts about that."
Maynayev points to the harshness of the pre-election campaign, during which candidates and opposition media have been harassed8 and, in some cases, shut down or silenced as evidence of his concerns about the future.
The West shares those concerns, accusing the increasingly authoritarian9 leader of illegally extending his term through a series of rigged elections and referenda and of trying to stamp out domestic opposition, human rights groups, and critical media.
U.S. President George Bush routinely brands Belarus as the last dictatorship in Europe.
Late last week, the Council of Europe urged Mr. Lukashenko to take concrete measures to allow news broadcasts of various sources beyond just pro-government outlets10. It also asked him to review the make-up of local election commissions in order to ensure fairness and balance.
President Lukashenko, who was first elected to office in 1994, has promised no major shifts in policy if he is re-elected as expected.
1 incumbent | |
adj.成为责任的,有义务的;现任的,在职的 | |
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2 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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3 analyst | |
n.分析家,化验员;心理分析学家 | |
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4 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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5 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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6 brutally | |
adv.残忍地,野蛮地,冷酷无情地 | |
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7 repressions | |
n.压抑( repression的名词复数 );约束;抑制;镇压 | |
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8 harassed | |
adj. 疲倦的,厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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9 authoritarian | |
n./adj.专制(的),专制主义者,独裁主义者 | |
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10 outlets | |
n.出口( outlet的名词复数 );经销店;插座;廉价经销店 | |
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