Salihorsk: will they find chair for observer this time?

The Salihorsk Town Executive Committee published the ruling About the formation of precinct election commissions Most of the commissions consist of workers of the institutions and enterprises on the territory of which the appropriate polling stations are situated, and are usually headed by their bosses at work. For instance, the schoolmistress of secondary school #9 Halina Shauchenka was nominated to PEC #1 by the Belarusian Union of Women. The PEC consists of workers of school #9 who were nominated to the commission in different ways: by collection of signatures of electors, by the labor collective of the school or by different public associations.

Many members of the PECs used to work in them in 2006, during the previous presidential elections, and got in the focus of the attention of human rights defenders at that time. In particular, the headmaster of secondary school #11 Uladzimir Kashtalian headed the PEC that was situated in the school building. The commission didn’t manage to find a chair for observer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, which was used as the formal reason to deny him acreditaion.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections