Numerous Violations At Belarusian Referendum :: Charter'97 :: News

In Belarus observers speak about numerous violations in the referendum on constitution change. At the moment in the country “there is not a single poling station, election district from which we have not received information about harsh and often inappropriate actions of Belarusian authorities,” told the director of the special projects of the First channel (Russia) Pavel Sharamet to the radio station “Ekho Moskvy”.

“For instance, in Barysaw, Lahojsk, Homiel and other cities all registered independent observers and representatives of opposition were expel from the polling stations, nobody is let in the district election commissions, which are placed under enhanced police guarding now,” he said.

As said by the journalist, at the polling station number 29 in Homiel journalist Iryna Makavetskaya was made go out and taken to the police station “on the excuse that she violated public order and hindered the work of the election commission, and besides, approached the ballot box for 12 steps, while she was to stay 50 steps away of the ballot box”.

The reporter does not exclude that counting of votes is to happen without participation of independent observers. “Observers also note strange manipulations with the figures,” underlined Sharamet. “If on Saturday morning the CEC of Belarus told about average 17% of those who took part in early voting in the country, today it turned out at the polling stations that about 30% of people have already voted. There are some record-breakers, for instance, Vitsebsk region, where the number of early voters the day before unexpectedly reached 50%”.