Salihorsk: electoral measures are closed for observers
Leanid Markhotka, Salihorsk representative of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee.
On 12
October the member of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Leanid Markhotka addressed
the Chairperson of the Salihorsk District Executive Committeee the request to
be invited to the events standing in the schedule of organizational and
ideological provision of the election. On 28 October he received an answer.
‘I
don’t know whether there was more incompetence or deliberate skipping of the
question raised. Instead of giving a well-grounded answer concerning the
possibility of my admission to the pre-electoral measures of the electoral
committee as an observer, I am informed that ‘the preparation and holding of
elections are covered by mass media,' commented the observer.
The executive committee also violated the legal terms for answering his request
for presenting him the documents for the establishment of the Salihorsk
District Election Commission. ‘It’s a talk of a deaf and dumb man with a blind
one. I asked them about concrete papers on the basis of which the district
election committee was established, but was told that the election commission
had been established by the executive committee, the decision had been
published and that’s all. These aren’t even answers, just abstract notes. I am
shocked by it as a lawyer.
The Salihorsk District Election Commission follows the example of the executive
committee. In response to the written request of the observer to inform him
about the date and place of verification of the signatures that were collected
by members of campaign teams he received a weird answer, one half of which
consists of quotations from the Electoral Code and at the end of which Mr.
Markhotka is reminded that ‘observer has no right to create obstacles to normal
work of election commissions and interfere with their work’.
Leanid Markhotka believes that such attitude to observers from the side of the
Salihorsk District Election Commission witnesses the reluctance to make the
electoral process more open and transparent in the Salihorsk district. Human
rights defenders have prepared a number of complaints to the procuracy
concerning violations of the electoral legislation by the Salihorsk District Executive
Committee.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections
