Baranavichy: Yarmoshyna’s ‘right’ approach

Karnei Piatrovich, an election observer from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, received an answer from the Central electoral commission to his appeal. The observer asked whether it was right of the state mass media to publish only the surnames, names and patronymic names of the people who were included in precinct electoral commission, and whether it was legal that all precinct commissions of electoral constituency #5 were composed on the following principle: workers of a working collective + its boss at the head of the commission. At the same time, no opposition’s representatives were included in these commissions, though the appropriate requests were submitted by them to the constituency electoral commission. Another problem Karnei Piatrovich faces is that the precinct commissions conceal the time of their sittings.

The answer of the head of the Central electoral commission Lidziya Yarmoshyna was very laconic. She wrote that ‘according to the existing practice’ mass media published only the surnames, names and patronymic names of the members of commissions, and by whom they were nominated. ‘To our mind, such approach is correct, as it lets forming a more complete opinion about forming of the commissions’. What concerns formation of the precinct commissions from representatives of one working collecting, Yarmoshyna answered that they could be nominated to the commissions by different subjects. Thus, the CEc head gave a runaround to some of the observer’s questions and abstained from answering to the remaining ones.

Human rights activists for free elections