Precinct election commissions formed secretly in Leninski district of Mahiliou
Last week human rights defender Barys Bukhel passed
documents for the inclusion of human rights defender Aliaksei Kolchyn to a
precinct election commission. He asked officers of the organizational and
personnel department of the Leninski District Executive Committee to inform him
about the date, time and place of the sitting on formation of precinct election
commissions.
“We wanted to attend this sitting, but were given no information about it on
Sunday. At 8.30 a.m.
on Monday I phoned to this department and asked about the time and place of the
sitting once again. They again answered they didn’t know, as the department
allegedly had too many documents to process,” said Mr. Bukhel.
The human rights activist was also told that the head of the department of the
manager of the executive officer of the Leninski District Executive Committee
of Mahiliou who could answer his question were away at a council.
“At 9.30 a.m.
I finally caught the executive officer, Aliaksandr Paddubny, on the phone. He
told me that the committee’s specialists were working at it, but he didn’t know
the time of the sitting at the time, and asked me to phone before or after the
daybreak,” continues the human rights activist.
When Barys Bukhel phoned to the head of the organizational and personnel
department Maryna Khadanionak again, she said that the sitting had been
conducted at 10 a.m.
“At 3 p.m. I paid a visit to Maryna Khadanionak and asked her why she hadn’t
informed me about the date, time and place of the sitting in advance. She
refused to answer my question and just said that human rights defender Kolchyn
hadn’t been included in the precinct commission as she is an observer at
constituency election commission #85 which would hinder his work in the
commission,” added Barys Bukhel.
It’s worth mentioning that Aliaksei Kolchyn was nominated to the precinct
election commission solely just to get to the sitting of the district executive
committee at which the precinct commissions were formed. “We were sure that we
won’t be included in the commissions, but it was important for us to monitor
the process of their formation,” said Mr. Kolchyn. “Pitifully enough, likewise
with the previous elections, we were deprived of the opportunity to do it.”
“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”
