Brest: Polling stations lack information about candidates

24.09.2008. Tags: Brest, elections-2008.

On September 23rd Anatol Liaukovich, chairman of the BSDP (Hramada) and candidate to the Chamber of Representatives in Brest-Zakhodniaya district #1, filed a statement to the Central Election Commission and OSCE and CIS observation missions.

The statement says, according to Article 45 of the Election Code, “stands with informational materials about candidates are to be prepared at all polling stations, no later than 14 days before the election day. Information stands should be kept in the voting premises also on the day of the election”.

On September 17th and 18th agents of candidate Liaukovich visited the following polling stations in district # 1: 1, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43 -- 24 polling stations out of 43 in the district. Campaign materials of all candidates in the district were missing at polling station # 30: incumbent MP Aleh Vialichka and deputy CEO of “Klavira and Co. Ltd.” Barys Hassan. At 15 polling stations one could find only the posters of A. Vialichka. At three polling stations ## 20 21, 26 information materials were kept in the offices of chairmen of precinct election commissions, i.e. they were not placed on the information stands in the voting premises as it is required by the law.

On September 21st, one day before the beginning of early voting, Liaukovich’s agents visited 24 polling stations (## 1, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43) of Brest-Zakhodniaya district # 1. Despite the fact that on September 17th and 18th the agents asked the commissions to place Liaukovich’s campaign materials on the information stands, in the majority of cases the posters were missing.

In polling station # 26, located in Brest State University, where Liaukovich delivered lectures for almost 25 years, the information stand was missing at all. All the information materials were found in the office of the chairperson of the precinct election commission. Liaukovich complained about that fact to the CEC on September 15th. He has informed the district commission about that violation several times before that. Still, neither the CEC, nor the district commission reacted to his complaint.

Anatol Liaukovich asked the Central Election Commission to immediately rectify the situation. He asked the international observers from the OSCE and CIS, and the domestic observers to pay attention to violations of Article 6 of the Election Code.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections