8 Things The OSCE Observer Is Surprised With

Pole Tomasz Bladynec has not yet seen such "elections".

International observer Tomasz Bladynec participated in five observation missions of the OSCE in Eastern Europe. His first experience was at "parliamentary elections" in Belarus in 2004. Then he was in Slutsk.

12 years later he decided to see how the election process had changed in Belarus and he found himself in Slutsk again. Our interlocutor says that the country has become more attractive and more European: many buildings are restored, there are a lot of cafes and places of interest to spend a good time at.

Radio Svaboda asked Tomasz whether it is applicable to elections. The answer has eight points about things he was really surprised with.

1. Precinct Commissions

There were 46 commissions in my precinct and only one had a member from opposition. The opposition offered 5 people, but 4 were rejected. It proves that the vote counting cannot be transparent.

2. Observers

I was surprised with few independent observers. There were a few of them at every station, but they were from Belaya Rus, Veteran Union and Women Union and so on. I do think they were active. They persuaded us that everything was great. There were cases when observes were not even registered. By an odd coincidence, they were English teachers. They listened attentively to what OSCE observers were saying.

3. Faulty seal on a box

We have photo that a box for early voting at station No. 5 was opened. We made a photo in the evening and then on the other day. It is clear that the seal was broken.

4. Early voting

Early voting lists had very similar signatures of voters. Usually, when different people put their signature it is done in a different style. It is natural. There was a date written on the left and signature put on the right. In other case a date was at the top and signatures were at the bottom.

5. Turnout

Voting lists were divided into several parts. Some of them were almost empty and others had almost 100% of early voters. I asked the chairman of the commission about it. He said: they are patriots. We visited various stations and saw a person in a half an hour or even no one. We wondered about voters. We were told that they would come later, or that we missed each other. According to protocols, there were 40% of them.

6. Subordination

In most cases members of election commissions belong to organizations the election was held at. And their immediate superior was their chairman. In such a situation it is difficult to talk about some independence of commission members.

7. Vote counting

There was no opportunity to see the figures. We were three meters away from the place of vote counting. They talked in whispering voices. And final figures were not voiced. So, the accurate data are unknown. The final protocol did not reflect results at different stations.

8. Results

While early voting in Slutsk a pro-government candidate had around 50% against 18% of a candidate from opposition. On the last day she had 33%, and the opposition member - 20%. This is a laboured difference between candidates during the early voting.