Central Election Commission creates conditions for falsification

• 22.08.2008, 15:35

Most of the polling station election commissions are consisted of officers of the same organisation. Chiefs of these organisations head the commissions.

It is very convenient for any manipulations: none of commission members will object his or her director, representatives of the campaign “Human Rights Activists For Free Election” conclude.

Human rights activist give an example. The commission of Pralyatarski pooling station #1 in Svetlahorsk consists only of people working at heating plant; commission of Maladzyozhny polling station #13 includes workers of Khimvolokno enterprise; workers of pulp and paper factory are members of the commission of Chyrvonaarmeiski polling station #14. According the published list, members were nominated at the meetings of organisation departments, for example, at the heating plant, from a bookkeeping department, electrical shop, chemical shop and so on.

“We have analysed composition of commissions at other polling stations, too,” Viktar Ramanishka, member of the Homel region council of the Belarusian Popular Front party, says. “People who work at organisations that have no structural departments were made to nominate by gathering signatures. As a result most commission consist of people working for the same organisation. None of 28 representatives of democratic forces was included into commissions. It means that the authorities hide something.”

There are polling stations in every school. A teacher (who asked not to tell is name) says:

“The district executive committee includes on person into every commission. This is a school director or a person from leadership. He or she becomes head of the commission. A head of the commission is not elected at the meeting of the commission. The schoolmaster behaved like a commission chair from the very beginning, though it is recorded he was elected.”