Nikolai Statkevich: Unprecedented Falsification :: Charter'97 :: News

Unprecedented level of falsification was witnessed at first round of local elections by the monitors and candidates from the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada). A huge turnout at early voting with over 20% voters driven to the polling stations under different threats, pre-conditioned to a large degree the final outcomes of yesterday’s ballot. Orsha observers intercepted a message, on which one of the voters wrote “Forgive us, they are forcing us to cast votes beforehand almost at gun’s point”.

“Just as was expected, most of those, who voted ahead of schedule, sacrificed their votes to the state candidates. The observers weren’t allowed to attend the vote count procedure. This tendency was especially vivid in Minsk, where things grew into real quarrels sometimes. At times one could get an impression that commission members were only making an illusion as if they counted votes, passing to each other some confidential messages instead. In Borovlyany they instituted administrative action against a social-democrat from the Minsk district territorial electoral commission for his failed attempted to visit the vote count procedure at the local hospital,” – reads the statement of the head of the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada) Nikolai Statkevich.

As a result, noted Statkevich, seven BSDP NG candidates in Minsk came up second in the ballot with up to 35%, according to the official data. In all these constituencies, regardless of the number of candidates, there won the ones representing the state. Slightly different was the situation in the province, where social-democrats managed to most effectively resist falsifications. 11 social-democrats overcame their opponents in the first round in provincial constituencies, while 22 will engage in the second round of voting.