Observer From Hlusk Demands to Declare “Elections” Invalid

Ihar Kiryn has filed a legal application to the Central Election Commission chairperson with a demand to invalidate the voting results at the polling station №2 in Hlusk.

The grounds for rescinding the vote at the polling station №2, as Ihar Kiryn believes, were obvious and gross violations of openness and publicity principles required under the Electoral Code during tabulation of voting results, Viasna human rights centre reports.

In his complaint the elections monitor says that the place where the observers stayed at the polling station, excluded the possibility of visual observation of the vote count, required under Article 55 of the Electoral Code. Members of the commission hid the table with their backs, which did not allow the observers to see the vote count. Chairman of the precinct election commission did not respond to the observer’s request to provide at least a minimal opportunity to observe the counting of votes.

Moreover, the observer complained that in breach of Article 55 of the Electoral Code, the chairman of the commission did not announce the number of votes cast for “none of the above” candidates, after the counting of votes in the portable ballot box, the votes for Tatsiana Karatkevich and for “none of the above” candidates after the vote counting in the ballot boxes in the voting premises. The commission did not meet to sum up the voting results, and the results were accepted behind the closed doors in the absence of any control from the observers.

In his complaint Ihar Kiryn also attracts attention to the violation of Article 51 of the Electoral Code – on the elections day, October 11, only a ballot box in the voting premises of the polling station was visible to observers. The ballot boxes for early voting and home voting werebeyon observers’ he vision, behind the column.