Babruisk: strange manipulations with signatures in support of Uladzimir Niakliayeu
Alena Miadzvedzeva, Babruisk coordinator of "Tell the Truth!"
The member
of the electoral team of Uladzimir Niakliayeu Alena Miadzvedzeva paid a visit
to the Pershamaiski District Election Commission to find about the number of
the valid signatures in support of Mr. Niakliayeu.
’At first the Chairperson of the commission Viktar Harbaniou refused to give
any numbers at all’, said Alena Miadzvedzeva. ‘He said that he could call them
either to Uladzimir Niakliayeu or to the head of his electoral team. I
explained that there was so notion as the ‘head of the electoral team’ and
phoned to the Central Election Commission. In some time he received a telephone
call from them and was asked why he hadn’t given us the numbers. He answered in
my presence that ‘some women are sitting here, but they don’t ask anything’. I
got indignant at such boldness and asked how they could hold fair elections if
he was lying in my presence.’
After the telephone talk with officers of the Central Election Commission Viktar
Harbaniou called the number of the registered signatures in support of Uladzimir
Niakliayeu – 3,579. However, the electoral team had passed to the commission
just 3,275 signatures, that’s why Alena Miadzvedzeva asked where the commission
got the spare 304 signatures from.
’The Chairperson of the commission turned green after my question,’ comments
Alena. ‘I wanted to phone to the CEC again, but he took a file out of his bookcase
and said that these signatures had been passed by S.A.Smirnou. It was very
interesting, as there was no person with such a surname in our electoral team,
and all signatures in support of Mr. Niakliayeu were verified by me before
passing to the election commission. I will try to find out who is this
stranger. As a result, the Chairperson said that 100% of our signatures had
been found valid and called another number – 3,432, which means that there are
some ‘spare’ signatures anyway.’
Alena Miadzvedzeva expressed the opinion that the election commissions could be
preparing falsifications in such a way in order to mix valid signatures with
invalid. She also said that she didn’t have such problems at the Leninski
District Election Commission, where she was told the number that matched the
number of the signatures that had been passed to the commission.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections
