Head of the Office for democratic institutes and human rights OSCE Gerhard Studmann, speaking today at the Minsk press-conference, declared that all accusations, voiced by the regime against the international observers and OSCE AMG head Hans-Georg Wieck, are “paranoid”.
The electoral commissions are ordered to ensure 61% of cast votes for Alexander Lukashenko in the first round of presidential elections, said opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik at the September 8 press-conference in Minsk: “Something that’s going on in the country ahead of elections can’t be called anything but the legal arbitrariness, - deems Goncharik: They gravely violate legislation. The voters are pressured into pre-voting. Lukashenko’s statement on free and fair elections is but a myth. We are in for a grandiose election fabrication, - said the candidate, calling on the world community to do everything in its power to stop the great deceit or even “the seizure of power by Alexander Lukashenko”.
Journalist of the Polish newspaper “Tygodnik Tukholsky” Slavomir Gzhmel watched over the course of preliminary voting on September 7 at the precinct station #12 of the Pervomaisky district of Vitebsk. In one of the voting booths the Polish reporter found a ballot sheet with a mark “yes” opposite Lukashenko’s name. Gzhmel took picture of the found document and urged the members of the electoral commission to consider it invalid. The commission chair, however, inserted it into the ballot box hole. This move was also photographed by the journalist.
Member of the election precinct commission #46 of the Pervomaisky district of Vitebsk Galina Moguchaya discovered on Sept. 7 the traces of unsealing of the ballot box for preliminary voting. In this regard Galina Moguchaya addressed the commission head, resulting in no reaction on their part. By late hours September 7 around 16% of the total number of voters cast their votes at the polling station #46.
Today all Belarusian independent media were e-mailed a testimony of an anonymous election commission member, claiming that after the closure of polling stations, the commission members open the ballot boxes: “I am a member of the district commission and I learnt of the facts of arbitrary actions by officials on their interference with the voting process. At one of the precinct stations they unsealed the ballot box right after the end of the office hours. I guess, they sought to find out how the voting is going on. If similar practice was applied at other stations, one could know by now whether or not Lukashenko has the necessary support and step up measures to ensure it. I believe that the pre-voting was organized with the view to know beforehand what will come out of the September 9 ballot,” – reads the letter.
On the eve of the presidential election the Committee for State Security (KGB) has made a declaration, which states official Washington’s objective to “work for the consolidated position of ODIHR OSCE and PA OSCE for non-recognition of the election results in Belarus on September 10”. As a ground for this accusations KGB emphasizes that “the USA are preparing a project of the declarations with the following arguments – mass rigging of the election results, opposition lacking access to the local polling stations, interference to the international monitors to carry out the parallel vote count, and enormous use of the administrative resources.” The only one answer to this could be the following: we can see all these arguments in real life, and all these shocking violations were recorded not by the USA, but by the Belarusian authorities.
11:25, 08/09/2001
Today at 5p.m. representatives of the Vesna human rights center will hold a press-conference at which they will pass a statement over CEC decision to deprive of accreditation all Vesna observers. The human rights center assigned to the presidential elections a few thousand observers. Their expulsion from the list of observers will call into question the legitimacy of the ballot. The press-conference will take place in Svabody square, 23 (“Rabochy” newspaper office).
At today’s session the Central Electoral Committee ruled to deprive of accreditation all of the “Vesna” human rights center observers, who are a few thousand. They also allowed to hand out the ballot sheets to the voters upon presentation of any document with a photo and stamp, not necessarily a passport. Chairman and secretary of CEC Lidya Ermoshina and Nikolai Lozovik also stated that they heard nothing about today’s TV and radio address of Alexander Lukashenko, scheduled for 9p.m. At 5p.m. the CEC session will resume – “Vesna” observers, charged with the absence of nomination documents, can be followed by those from the Lev Sapega Foundation and Free Trade Union of Belarus.
Unique candidate for the president from wide public coalition Vladimir Goncharik declared on Saturday that the authorities plan a large-scale provocation, which the democratic forces have nothing to do with. At the press-conference in Minsk Goncharik said that some dubious organization “Belarusian liberation army” is spreading its flyers with calls to violent upheaval overnight September 9-10 in case the election results get rigged.
Yesterday in the second half of the day Alexei Galich, coordinator for the Soviet district of Minsk, was notified that the authorities try to remove an observer of the “Comradeship of the Belarusian language” Ales Demyanenko from the 61st polling station of Minsk. Galich, with a journalistic ID, arrived at the station and sought to clarify the reason for the removal of the observer. However, the chair of the commission Andrei Radyna snatched away his ID, crumpled it and threw away. In response, Galich called him a “bustard”. The commission chair called for the duty police officer, who detained the coordinator and filed protocol over the violation of art.156 of the Administrative code (minor hooliganism).
In the local branch of the Lev Sapega Foundation in Mogilyov and in the branch of the Voters’ Club in Schklov office equipment was confiscated. On 6 September in the evening about 15 police officers broke into the local branch of the Lev Sapega Foundation’s office in Mogilyov. They acted without having produced any official documents or their credentials. All the equipment in the office: three computers and a fax-- was confiscated. The head of the branch, Vladimir Shantsev, was not informed where the equipment had been taken.
On 7 September in Shklov Alexander Fiodorov, the Independent Monitoring group coordinator, and a monitor Vladimir Orlov were arrested. Preliminarily, they where taken to the Public Prosecutor’s office. Another Mogilyov coordinator of the civil initiative the Independent Monitoring, Piotr Migursky, was summoned to the Public Prosecutor’s office. The appointment took place on 7 September at 10 p.m. He spent about two hours at the interrogation. He was asked about funding of the campaign. On the same day the telephones of the headquarters of the Independent Monitoring and another organization participating in the independent monitoring and parallel ballots count, “Contact-Center”, were cut off.
“Independent Observation” initiative reports that on September 7 4,6% of residents cast their votes preliminarily. Therefore, over the four days of pre-voting around 13% engaged in the ballot. The information on the program of the parallel count of votes had been collected from 6,37% of all Belarusian polling stations, equally representing all Belarusian regions.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus prepared standard statements, findings and conclusions of the so-called “international observers”, bribed by the supporters of Lukashenko’s regime. These documents recognize the legitimate character of the presidential elections. On Thursday, September 6 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Khvostov issued a written order to all Ministry officials, who accompany the observers, to have them sign the documents on the day of elections – September 9. Moreover, CEC chairwoman Ermoshina has recently called on the true international observers to refrain from any commentaries until the ballot is over. Charter’97 press-center cites the text of Khvostov’s order, three variants of statements and the text of conclusions and findings, which the “monitors” are to sign.
Leading independent newspaper "Narodnaya Volya" was published this morning with a huge white gap on the front-page. Originally there was supposed to be there the slogan "Let us celebrate victory together!" with call to come September 9 at 8.05p.m. to the Oktyabrskaya square of Minsk and mark the victory of the unique candidate for the president from democratic forces Vladimir Goncharik. However, the censor from the State Committee for Press Glushakov removed the advertisement from the newspaper`s issue. The indignant journalists refused to fill in the missing gap with something else. In protest, the newspaper came out with huge white spot. Previously, similar spots appeared in "Predprinimatelskaya Gazeta", which sought to publish materials critical of Lukashenko`s regime.
Young skinheads were noticed yesterday evening in the vicinity of the Minsk Victory square. They passed over to pedestrians poorly X-copied flyers. Under the letterhead of a "Belarusian liberation army" there came a call to storm presidential residence. Remarkably, police kept hands off the distributors of flyers.
BUCHAREST, 7 September 2001 (OSCE) – The Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe notes with concern the public campaign launched in Belarus against the OSCE in general and its Advisory and Monitoring Group (AMG) in Belarus in particular, in connection with the current presidential election campaign.
On the day of presidential elections in Belarus – September 9 – there’ll be no police reinforcement in central Minsk, BelaPAN reporter was told by the Interior Ministry press-secretary Dmitry Parton. Police, he noted, will act in accordance with the legislation. Thus, the police officers are to guard the polling constituencies and ensure political order there. They will temporarily submit to the heads of the precinct electoral commissions. Dmitry Parton added that police actions will largely depend on the situation development. They are ready to enforce public order on the Oktyabrskaya street of Minsk too. As you remember, opposition leaders called upon the citizens to show up at 8.05p.m. near the Republic’s Palace and wait there for the results of the vote count.
Around a dozen of activists were detained September 7 in Mogilev during the dissemination of agitation materials in support of the presidential candidate Vladimir Goncharik. BelaPAN was told by the lawyer of the Goncharik’s election office Andrei Kurakov that in the Oktyabsrky district of Mogilev they instituted legal action against two opposition activists over the resistance to police. In the same district they drew protocol on the seizure of non-state papers from the underage. A few more Mogilev residents, who haven’t yet come of age either, were captured in the Central district of the town, all facing administrative changes. Police also confiscated their agitation materials.
In the Minsk headquarters of the public association “Association of Belarusian Students” (ABS) the law-enforcers confiscated September 7 the election materials and stuff. “Our raid at ABS office can be explained by a number of reasons,” – BelaPAN was told by the employee of the state procuracy Daria Lebedeva. The lady said that they’ve been recently receiving complaints that “some spread in Minsk the production of unknown origin”.
The Central Electoral Committee investigates the free distribution of the presidential Administration’s newspaper “Sovetskaya Belorussia” with agitation materials of Alexander Lukashenko. The chairwoman of the CEC Lidia Yarmoshina informed journalists at the press-conference on September 7.
Amazing transformations happen to the state press in Belarus. Although the election is yet to come, the official press slowly but surely takes Vladimir Goncharik’s side.
Friday night, ahead of the Saturday noon session of the Central Electoral Commission, which is set to consider Goncharik’s complaint over the arbitrary 3-hour long live air coverage of Alexander Lukashenko’s speech from the Republic’s Palace, the latter announced that he would again address the electorate – Saturday at 9p.m. both on TV and radio. This is a clear breach of the electoral law, which establishes equal frames for the candidate’s agitation. None of their speeches on state TV or radio can last for more than half-hour, which is not the case here.
An action of solidarity with the Belarusian democratic forces was held September 7 at 11.30a.m. in front of the Belarusian embassy in Brussels. 30 Belarusian fugitives assembled by the embassy gate, expressing their solidarity with the series of actions “Chain of those who care”, held in Belarus in memory of the missing, deceased and incarcerated opposition figures. The protesters marked 44th anniversary of the disappeared 13th Supreme Soviet Vice Speaker Viktor Gonchar. Their main objective was to draw the attention of the independent observers and Belgium public to the grave human rights pre-election situation in Belarus. Despite long distances and financial expenses, the folks, who still care about Belarus, arrived from throughout Belgium. Under the white-red-white colors the picketers raised banners with words in Belarusian, Russian, French and English: “We want to know the truth!” “Gonchar, Krasovsky, Zakharenko, Zavadsky – who’s next?” “Milosevic is gone, next to come is Lukashenko.” “Stop lies!” “Equal conditions for all candidates”, “Watch out for death squads!” and the like.
Syamon Domash, leader of the political council of Vladimir Goncharik, calls upon Belarusian nationals to make the right choice and vote for the unique candidate. Domash’s address to the nation reads the following:
Grodno television broadcast an interview with the chair of the local elective commission Nikolai Prisyada, who said that "we have no other choice right now, nor any other candidate, to whom we could entrust our country for the five years to follow. And not only the country." Nikolai Prisyada urged the TV-viewers to vote for Alexander Lukashenko, which he also vowed to do.
In course of the preliminary voting the country`s universities view mass violations of legislation and constitutional rights of students. This is especially true of the administration of the Minsk Polytechnic. Deputy dean of the construction faculty Sayapin threatened the students that "those who fail to vote beforehand will either be expelled from students or denied accommodation in the university dorm." These threats force the students to give up their right, guaranteed to them by art.5 of the Electoral Law - that is to decide on their own whether they should vote or abstain. Similar violations were recorded in the Belarusian Academy of Science, the Belarusian state university of informatics and radio-electronics, the BSU faculty of journalism, medical institute and other educational institutions. Oftentimes the scared students appeal to the "Vesna" human rights center, but decline to submit complaints directly to the procuracy. Even the students of the department of law of the leading Belarusian university can`t disagree with the dean Godunov and his assistant Satolin, who visited student dormitory, urging everyone to vote ahead of schedule.
CEC chairwoman Lidya Ermoshina declared that last Monday the CEC reprimanded again the leadership of the Belarusian State Television and personally odious TV host Zimovsky. The reason for the reprimand was the publication in "Resonance" program of ratings of presidential candidates and foretelling Lukashenko`s convincing victory. Article 46/12 of the Electoral Law of Belarus reads that over the last 10 days left before the ballot, one cannot publicize the results of surveys, linked with elections and prognosis.
Over half Russian populace don`t care who`ll celebrate victory at the presidential elections in Belarus. Results of the poll, launched by the Public opinion foundation in early September show that 52% Russians are indifferent to what the outcome of the ballot will be. Only 22% of Russians claim they are sympathetic with the incumbent, 23% stick to neutrality, 11% prefer different candidates, while 44% can`t say for sure. The number of those who trust and distrust Lukashenko is split in two equal halves. 33% say they trust him and same percent say they don`t, while 34% don’t say anything at all. The survey was held on the basis of representational selection in 100 populated areas in 44 regions of Russia, involving 1500 respondents.
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