Officials keeping secret the time of creating precinct election commissions

The representatives of the Frunzienski district administration of Minsk refused to provide the information to the contender for deputy in the Sukharava No.30 constituency concerning the date and time of the session on creating precinct election commissions for the election of the Minsk City Council.

Ales Lahviniec, adviser to the Movement for Freedom (the MFF) leader, who is seeking nomination in the Sukharava No.30 constituency, filed the appeal to the Central Election Commission for this reason.

According to the contender for deputy, Mr. Tsuran, the head of the Minsk Frunzienski district Organizational and Human Resources Department, violated Article 13 of the Election Code on the transparency of elections and Article 34 of the Election Code on the right of the citizens and of other election process entities to be present at the sessions of the bodies which create election commissions.

 

During this year’s election campaign, the Lahviniec’ team delegated 13 independent representatives to 11 precinct election commissions by way of collecting the citizens’ signatures. These people have great experience in election campaigning and in observing elections both in Belarus and abroad. According to Lahviniec, the officials don’t want such people to get in commissions, and, therefore, try and hold the sessions in the absence of the independent society representatives.

 

In his appeal, Lahviniec notes that Mr. Tsuran is regularly engaged in such unlawful actions, and this gives ground to special concern. In August 2008, for example, this official refused to provide similar information to the citizens who delegated 30 representatives to 30 precinct election commissions of the Sukharava No.102 constituency by the way of signatures’ collecting. As the result, no single of the 30 representatives of the citizens was included in precinct election commissions of the Sukharava No.102 constituency, and the 2008 election to the House of Representatives was declared by the OSCE as not meeting the principles and standards of free and fair elections.

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