The observers’ work confirms low turnout and electoral fraud

Belarusan elections

Coordinators of the election observation expressed their opinion, whether to strengthen the observation movement in Belarus and bring it to the national level.

Also, they talked about the confrontation between pro-government and independent observers at polling stations.

Coverage of the country

The campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" is a joint initiative of the Human Rights Centre "Viasna" and the Belarusan Helsinki Committee. This year, 95 long-term and 295 short-term observers have worked at the parliamentary elections in Belarus. They covered 106 of 110 constituencies and 150 polling stations across the country.

According to the deputy chairman of the Human Rights Centre "Viasna" Valiantsin Stefanovich, the observers’ work has already been established. This year the focus was made on as to engage as many new people as possible, because previous experience was not so successful. Therefore, experienced observers having experience under the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections", worked at the elections. However, by the Central Election Commission appeals and complaints of independent observers criticized, the Central Election Commission chairwoman Lidziya Yarmoshyna accused representatives of the Belarusan Helsinki Committee that they’d made carbon copies of complaints, caviled to all the details in the organization of elections.

The Belarusan Helsinki Committee chairman Aleh Hulak said, "Observers have applied to district commissions to be allowed to see the electoral lists, to be shown the minutes - the information, directly related to the electoral process - but it has been hidden from the observers from year to year ".

The attitude has deteriorated

By the way, according to human rights defenders, this year the attitude to observers was worse than at the elections in 2010, when the authorities displayed of liberalization. "In Homel, our observer Anatoly Poplauny was removed from the site, another observer Siarhei Houša was made to pay a fine in Baranavičy for allegedly using obscene language in the presence of members of the district election commission. In fact, he just asked to see the minutes of the meeting, but the chairman of the commission called the police, a forgery case was instituted against the observer", said Valiantsin Stefanovich.

At the 101st Frunzenskaja constituency, members of the campaign "Tell the Truth!", its youth wing “Zmena”, Movement For Freedom and the BPF Party called at first on the voters to boycott; then they tried to organize active observations at most polling stations of the district. According to Aliaksandr Fiaduta, the deputy chairman of the "Tell the Truth!" campaign, it was a technological campaign - to check out on the eve of the presidential election, would it be possible to organize a boycott.

Who provided the turnout?

Campaigners believe that their appeals have worked, although human rights activists state that the low turnout is not the result of the opposition’s work, but that of the authorities, who did their best to destroy the political life and electorate interest in these processes.

However, it was exactly the observing that has made possible to record a low voter turnout, and these indicators are very different from the figures put by the election commissions’ chairmen in final minutes, exactly 2-2.5 times, said the deputy chairman of the Movement For Freedom Yuras Hubarevich.

"Indeed, if there were no observers, the supporters of the boycott would have nothing to appeal to, said Hubarevich. Thanks to the observers, "election carousels" were fixed, a mechanism that the Belarusan authorities used in their favor for the first time. Naturally, there is need to strengthen the observing. Only 2-3 observers on site are clearly not enough, as far as we have faced the fact that some observers were simply removed from sites".

Confrontation

By the way, the confrontation between pro-government and independent observers was really high this year. Only at the 101st Frunzenskaja constituency, a number of examples were recorded, when at the claims of the "Belaya Rus”, representatives of the BPF Party and of the Movement For Freedom were removed from the sites. Chairman of the Minsk city organization Movement For Freedom Yury Meliashkevch adds: "The administration of the Frunze district was holding trainings on the eve of elections for members of district election commissions. We had also tried to get there, to see what they would be taught, but we’ve been denied, and the meeting was held behind closed doors. Already at the time of the vote, we noticed that the committee members had their own tactics to remove the independent observers. Moreover, the pro-government observers were taught to hinder us. But sometimes there were cases of solidarity. Thus, in one of the sections, the observers of “Тhе Federation оf Trade Unions оf Belarus” and those of "Belarusan Women's Union" themselves were shocked when they heard the results of the turnover, voiced by the Commission Chairman as far as discrepancies were a few times".

"Today the Belarusan authorities do not think about the consequences, says Yuras Hubarevich. Pro-regime observers have also seen the fraud. And there were the ones who were naturally indignant at this. This way, the regime alienates even its supporters".

Aliaksandr Fiaduta is convinced that there can and should be more observers at Belarusan elections. "Independent media were actively writing about how one can join the observation. However, only four people having learned about it from the media, joined the observation of the campaign "Tell the Truth!". They were consequently pressed from the dean's office, so they never reached the polls. Today, voters need to understand that is not enough to vote or simply to boycott the elections – they must defend their vote. Many people think that they are sitting on the couch, doing nothing, and it is good that they are not related to all this mud with fraud. However, I would like to appeal to voters – everything depends on you. And the thing that you have not taken part in the observation on September 23, contributed to the fact that another election fraud took place in Belarus".