Belarusian opposition names ways of rigging election results

“For Fair Elections” campaign has analyzed the possible ways of rigging election results.

As said by the coordinator of the campaign, the chairman of the Belarusian Leftist Party “A Just World” Syarhei Kalyakin, there are 4 most widespread variants.

- Firstly, ballot-box stuffing in the polling stations on the voting day which is not so easy to do in presence of many people. This method of election fraud is the most easy to prevent by keeping an eye on the ballot box, -- Syarhei Kalyakin said in an interview to “Zavtra tvoej strany”.

The second way is ballot-box stuffing during voting outside polling stations.

- This way demands many people for the fraud. Ballot boxes are not so big, and even the full ballot box is filled with ballots, this way could be controlled, and we will do so by following the persons who go to the flats of citizens or to the other place outside a polling station.

As said by Kalyakin, the third way of rigging election results is the most popular among the falsifiers. It is ballot-box stuffing during the early vote.

- In such a case two factors come into play: the early voting is stimulated among citizens of certain categories: students, military men, at the enterprises, when people are taken to the polling stations in buses, and a day or two before the polling day the ballots in the boxes are exchanged,” Syarhei Kalyakin said. – Today we have an eloquent confirmation that this method is used. The statement by police lieutenant colonel Mikalai Kazlou, who in 2008 recorded such a fact in the polling station #43 of Staravilenski electoral district #105. He submitted a report to the head of the Chief Directorate of the Internal Affairs of Minsk city executive committee. Two years have passed, but no one takes any measures.

The forth way of electoral fraud, as said by Syarhei Kalyakin, looks in the following way.

- It is when the chairman of a commission announces the figures of the election results which had been given to him earlier, without any correspondence to what is kept in the ballot boxes, – said the leader of “A Just World”. – Two sets of ballots are manufactures. Part of them is kept in a separate room. And the second one is kept in a completely different place. And even demands of recount of votes won’t help in such a case.

A coordinator of “For Fair Elections-2010” campaign emphasizes that awareness about the schemes of election fraud would make it possible to take adequate measures to prevent the fraud.