Mazyr: observer didn't manage to get to sitting of district executive committee held to form PECs

On 6 July election observer Uladzimir Tseliapun applied to the head of the organizational and personnel department of the Mazyr District Executive Committee Veranika Baikova who is also the secretary of constituency election commission #42 in order to find about the date, time and place of the sitting of the Mazyr District Executive Committee at which the precinct election commissions of   election constituency #42 were to be formed.

He received a negative answer – Baikova stated that he had the right to attend only sittings of the constituency election commission, not sittings of the DEC. The observer didn't manage to find the necessary information at the website of the Mazyr DEC either. That's why he had to file an electronic application to the head of the executive committee Ya. Adamenka and the head of the Mazyr District Council S. Hvozdz, asking them to consider the possibility of uploading the necessary information to the website.

However, announcement about the sitting appeared at the website of the district authorities only on the day of the sitting, 7 August.

“Such secrecy during the establishment of the PECs is incomprehensible,” says Mr. Tseliapun. “For instance, in Kalinkavichy an observer was invited to the sitting three in three days' advance. Holding sittings in the beginning of the labor day is the practice of the Mazyr vertical. Probably, they didn't want be to attend the sitting as they couldn't have quorum so early (at 7.30 a.m.).”

According to the observer, the inaccurate description of the borders of the election constituencies #42 and #43 (as a result of which the Central Election Commission had to issued ruling #43 to correct its ruling #19) eloquently demonstrates that the parliamentary election is not a significant event for Mazyr authorities.

“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”