Salihorsk: officials classify procedure of forming election commissions
Leanid Markhotka, a representative of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee in Salihorsk, had asked local authorities to provide him with an opportunity to scrutinize the documents submitted by nominees to the precinct election commissions. However, the officials rejected the observer’s request, therefore turning into a secret the procedure of formation of election commissions.
“The ban refers to the fact that the Electoral Code does not provide for that. But there is no prohibition in the Code on access to these documents by members of the public,” says Mr. Markhotka. “In addition, there is a certain procedure. At a meeting on the formation of the commissions, chief ideologist of the Salihorsk district executive committee Mikalai Maskevich confirmed that none of the alternative candidates was elected member of the commissions. Unfortunately, there was no discussion. Nobody could see the protocols on the means of nomination. It is unclear why some candidates appeared to be worse than others. In such circumstances, the refusal to grant me the opportunity to have access to these documents indicates the opacity of the whole process of formation of precinct election commissions in Salihorsk district. At least we can talk about the lack of transparency at this stage of the elections. In fact, the government has made a secret of such an important procedure.
According to the human rights activist, he is going to appeal against the refusal to the Minsk regional executive committee.