IN POLATSK SOME LOCAL ELECTION COMMISSIONS ARE CREATED “COMPLETELY FOR THE CANDIDATE” – 100% OF COMMISSION MEMBERS ARE CANDIDATE’S SUBORDINATES

Valery Shchukin, well-known journalist, human rights activist, candidate to Polatsk city council, informed Viasna about composition of some Polatsk local election commissions.

Constituency # 1
B. Sivy, general director of state enterprise “Shklovalakno”, is one of the candidates. 19 members of local election commission (100%) are his subordinates.

Constituency # 2

E. Buevich, director of college of trade and economics is one of the candidates. 10 members of local election commission (58%) are his subordinates.

Constituency # 8

V. Klaimionaw, head of a building state company #22, is one of the candidates. 18 members of local election commission (95%) are his subordinates.

Constituency # 10
Candidates:
1. V.Dziuba, director of college of agriculture and economics. 9 members of local election commission (47%), including deputy head and secretary of the commission, are his subordinates.
2. T. Patlushkina, director of teachers’ college. 5 members of local election commission (26%) are her subordinates.
3. Human rights activist V. Shchukin

Polatsk authorities ignored the norm of Art 35 of the Election Code, which allows working collectives nominate only one representative to election commission. In 15 local election commissions -- ## 1, 5, 8, 12, 16, 19, 21, 24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35 – 75-100% of members are representatives of the same enterprises. Representatives of the same working bodies are simply nominated by different structural units of one organization. Some employees were made to gather signatures of their co-workers to be nominated to election commissions. However, no matter how they were nominated, often they are still subordinate to some of the candidates who are running in their constituency.
In the rest 20 local election commissions -- ##2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 30, 33 – representatives of one working collective make up 30-65%.
Thus, the authorities have ignored the principle of wide public representation in election commissions. V. Shchukin complained about violation of the election legislation to the Council of Ministers and the Central Election Commission. He demands to cancel the decision of Polatsk administration about composition of election commissions . He proposes to create commissions out of the same people, but send them to work in election commissions on the place of their residence, because acting election commissions are formed on their working places.