Police steps up measures to spoil the action of protest on the Oktyabrskaya square, scheduled for 5p.m. Before the start of Lukashenko’s press-conference, which was held in the Republic’s Palace, riot police officers, both uniformed and plain-clothed, tried to oust the young opposition adherents from the square. By their actions the law-enforcers wanted to hide away the protesters from the view of the journalists, who came for Lukashenko’s press-conference. At the moment around 80 people are staying in the Trade Union Palace. 40 more stand on watch at the entrance to the building. Shortly, crowds are expected to proceed in the direction of the Palace. A few dozen riot police officers are patrolling the square. Moreover, they blocked movement on a sidewalk, leading from the Victory Square to the place of destination, so that the protesters couldn’t get to the place.
The head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Adrian Severin refused to meet the head of the Belarusian Ministry of the International Affairs Mikhail Khvostov, the Russian Interfax agency informs. This fact clearly reveals the real attitude towards Belarus of European states after the outrageous rigging the election results and falling short of the internationally recognized election campaign standards.
Representative of the “Union of right forces” faction of the Russian parliament Vadim Bondar said that he’s the only person from the dispatched to Belarus parliamentary delegation, who didn’t sign the passed statement. According to Bondar, there are problems with legislation in Belarus. he claims that Belarusian laws are bluntly weak. The Russian also raised concerns over the control of the voting, for the authorities removed many observers from polling stations.
The majority of surveyed by the radio-station “Echo of Moscow” respondents disagree with the idea that the “re-election” of Alexander Lukashenko as Belarusian president will do good for Russia. Interactive express-poll, conducted within the framework of the “Ricochet” program, showed that 64% are opposed to Lukashenko, while 36% claim that Russia will profit from him. Overall, during 5 minutes survey there have been recorded 3529 incoming calls in the radio-station’s office.
Chair of the Belarusian National Republic Council Ivonka Survilla commented to radio “Svaboda” on the September 9 events in Belarus: “Lukashenko’s victory is absolutely unreal. Lukashenko couldn’t have reached such score fairly. That leaves only one conclusion – he forfeited the elections, which most people agree that he did. So now we should resume our fight for the free and independent Belarus and better future of our nation.”
Head of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Dave Kuori said that as a result of the policy of official Minsk a ten-million nation appeared in self-imposed isolation. He stressed that there’s no grounds to consider these presidential elections as free and democratic and added that in the near future PACE will think over the strategy of contacts with Belarus.
The majority of the rural residents of the Diatlovo region participated in the early voting. As the local independent observers noticed, that on the election day at many rural polling stations only 100-130 people have voted. The majority of the village residents have made their choice in advance. For example, at the polling station #23 in Diatlovo region only 98 constituency members voted, and the constituency is equal to 752 people. It means that about 80 percent of the constituency members voted ahead of time.
Unique candidate from wide public coalition Vladimir Goncharik forwarded to the Central Electoral Committee a complaint, urging them to annul the outcomes of yesterday’s ballot. “The complaint contains over 30 pages and is based upon evidence, presented by the “Independent Observation” civil initiative, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and structures of my electoral headquarters. It details the whole of the electoral process and the occurred violations,” – said Vladimir Goncharik.
Minutes ago there finished the session of the political council of Vladimir Goncharik’s headquarters. It was decided to hold a rally at 5p.m. on the Oktyabsrkaya square in Minsk. At the moment Goncharik’s proxies proceeded to the CEC to pass them the complaint. Vladimir Goncharik has no illusions about the final decision of the CEC. In this regard, in the near future the candidate from opposition will dispute the elections outcomes in the International court.
President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in a phone conversation congratulated Alexander Lukashenko with landslide victory at presidential elections. Putin’s press-center reports that during the talk both presidents vowed readiness to “further deepen all-round cooperation and contacts at all levels in building up the union state”. Putin congratulated Lukashenko one hour before the OSCE declared elections illegitimate. Now Putin is risking to run into trouble with Europe, due to his “all-level contacts with Europe’s sole dictator”.
Belarusian presidential elections were announced as not corresponding to international standards, said at today’s press-conference in Minsk OSCE election monitoring mission representatives. The participants of the press-conference underscored that their observation was very limited and was accompanied by numerous law violations by the authorities, like imposed control over press and pressure exerted on observers.
The West distrusts the outcomes of the election results in Belarus. The journalists rest assured that the poll was forfeited, calling Lukashenko everything from “a whiskered dictator, inspired by Hitler and Stalin”.
As noted by the head of the International Helsinki Federation, the elections in Belarus “represent a dangerous experiment”, when one may unabashedly violate his country’s commitments before the OSCE, UN, overlooking democratic standards and recommendations of such authoritative organizations as, say, the Council of Europe.
Manifestation against the shameful politics of Alexander Lukashenko took place September 8 in central Stockholm. Swedish news agency TT reported that prominent Swedish politicians were seen there at the rally. The Minister for the issues of democracy Britta Leyon called presidential elections in Belarus an “apparent farce”, blaming Lukashenko for grave human rights violations. Leader of the Swedish Popular Party Lars Lejonborg noted in his discourse that despite everything the elections became yet another reminder that “there exists an alternative to the ruling regime in the country”.
Vladimir Goncharik is participating right now in the work of the political council meeting, held in the Trade Union Palace on Oktyabrskaya square. Some 200 ZUBRs stand on watch inside and outside the building. They were joined by approximately the same number of Goncharik’s supporters, who came this morning to express their solidarity with the resistance. Opposition leaders are discussing the format of the rally, to be held today at 5p.m. in the Oktyabrskaya square of Minsk. They also determine on the possibility of petitioning the CEC over the necessity of the second round of voting, as far as the first vote count was fraudulent. Moreover, the sides will decide whether the Trade Union Palace should transform into the resistance stronghold.
On Monday a high-ranking OSCE official H.Balian declared that presidential elections in Belarus weren’t democratic. He added that he wouldn’t also characterize them by words “free” and “honest”. However, said Balian, most violations occurred during the pre-election period, while the voting procedure was quite “decent”. As you remember, OSCE observers were officially invited to monitor the ballot course in Belarus. Today OSCE will hold a press-conference concerning its evaluation of the voting.
The headquarters of the unique candidate for the presidency is sitting these minutes in the Trade Union Palace of Culture. Around 200 ZUBRs are waiting on the steps of the Palace for Vladimir Goncharik. A few riot police units are there too in full combat readiness. The political council of the unique candidate will gather in the Palace. Opposition is set to define their actions for the future period. One thing we can be sure of – presidential elections won’t gain recognition and the people of Belarus will be fighting for there freedom.
Today at around seven in the morning the members of Vladimir Goncharik’s headquarters disseminated the statement of the Coordination Council of wide public coalition: “Countrymen! You voted against the present-day authorities. However, the regime disgraced the will of the nation by cynically changing the voting outcomes to their favor. We’re calling upon you to come September 10 at 5p.m. to the Oktyabrskaya square of Minsk in order to stand for the right “to be called people”. Only our joint actions can stop the ongoing crimes and arbitrariness. Freedom or slavery – every one of us has to make this choice.”
Part of the large-scale monitoring campaign, launched by the “Independent Observation” initiative was the implementation of the parallel vote count project. This technology is widespread in the world with the observers gathering, transmitting and counting the election results at the selected polling stations to prevent election fraud. The observers have been collecting data throughout the five-day voting period. They would daily get the info from an average of 400 stations. On the day of elections they gathered around 4/5 of the overall data through the net. However, in contradistinction with the pre-voting, they cannot state the credibility of the results now.
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) has petitioned the Central Election Commission, demanding cancellation of the official results of the September 9 presidential election, i.e. a landslide victory for the incumbent Alexander Lukashenko.
District coordinator of observation from the “Belarusian Republic’s Club of Voters” Ermalovich and chair of the district commission in Berezino Grigory Zinevich declined to give any official data on the course of the voting and schedule of district commission’s meetings. He said: “Neither the lists of voters, nor the protocols of registration of home vote will be presented to you for familiarization!” Chair of the commission of the Yubileiny polling station of Berezino (Minsk region) Podolyanchik rejected to provide the independent observers with any data. Ermalovich claims that up to 15-35% of voters were included into the number of “home votes”, which is the reason why the document is kept so confidential.
As the head of the civil initiative “Mogilyov Human Rights Protection Center”, the deputy chairman of the Mogilyov branch of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, S.V.Obodovsky informed, the following violations of the law in Mogilyov happened:
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