Yury Chavusau: ‘The final result is one person’s hands’

On the election day, polling station #9 in Minsk’s Kurasoushchynskaya constituency #16 was visited by a number of observers of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the US and Swedish embassies and others. It was due to this fact that the polling station appeared to be one of the few were observers could watch the counting of votes. At the same time, some 70% of local electors voted early.

‘Despite the fact that during the vote counting we were standing right behind the commissioners’ backs and could see the ballots being counted, there still was no separate counting of ballots of early vote, ‘home vote’ and those of the election day. As a result, none of the commission members, each being in charge of only a part of the ballots and then submitting the results to the chair, could be sure that his or her calculations were correctly recorded. The final figures announced dealt with the overall results, so it was impossible to compare the results of early vote and that of 25 April. The procedure, when each commission member counts only part of the ballots, was not an accidental innovation of the Belarusian authorities – the system prevents the commission members from seeing whether the results they are about to sign are fair or not,’ says the famous Belarusian political analyst Yury Chavusau.

The expert also said that the amendments to the Belarusian Electoral Code failed to result in any positive changes in the vote counting procedures and the overall system of calculating election results. The landslide victories by the pro-state candidates are evidence to the incredibility of the official figures.

‘One can elect opposition representatives members of commissions or authorize any campaigning activities, but in the end it all will be one man’s hands, the one who is in charge of the final calculations and the final results,’ says the analyst.

‘Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections’