Minsk: election commission shuns its member from BPF Party
The member of the
Belarusian Popular Front Party Iryna Smiayan-Semianiuk who was included in precinct
election commission #104 of the Maskouski district of Minsk is not informed
about the time of the commission’s sitting ’.
Let us present to your attention a part of her story: ‘The second sitting of
precinct election commission #104, whose member I am, took place on 15 November.
After the sitting I received just one telephone call – they asked me to bring
the list of electors living in the house that I had been told to visit to
verify the information about them. It was on 24 November. After this I haven’t
received any telephone calls, as if the commission ceased to exist.
On 6 December I want to school #206 when my commission and my precinct are
situated and paid a visit to the schoolmaster to ask whether our commission had
had any sittings after 15 November. The schoolmaster told me to ask this
question to the head of the commission, Yury Nasonau, as she dealt with
education and didn’t have such information. However, I couldn’t reach him over
the phone and neither the schoolmaster nor the commission secretary gave me any
other contact information. I noticed that both of them were nervous.
It was clear that the commission had had a meeting without me – and the time of
duty of members of the commission had been determined at it. When I phoned to
the chairperson, he pretended that he didn’t understand who was speaking for a
long time, but didn’t manage to escape from the talk. He confessed that having
held a sitting without me.
’Yes, I didn’t phone to you. This is not my duty. It’s up to you to pay
interest to the time when the commission gathers. My working hours are already
over today, that’s why I say good-bye,’ – that’s how our talk ended.
Naturally, I won’t turn a blind eye to it. Tomorrow I will file a complaint
with the CEC against the actions of the head of the election commission, Mr. Nasonau.’
Here’s an excerpt from the Electoral Code of the Republic of Belarus:
Article 37. Organization of the work
of territorial, constituency and precinct election commissions.
Sittings of commissions are summoned and held by the chairperson, or by the
deputy chairperson – in the case of his absence, or on his errand. Sittings of a
commission are also held on demand of not less that 1/3rd of members
of the commission. Members of the commission are informed about the sitting of
the commission in advance.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections
