Mahiliou: “MP” Yushkevich obtained victory in packs

At polling station # 46 of district # 85 observers registered planted ballot papers.

“I have become a witness of the election farce, -- observer Ihar Barysau says. – in the beginning chairperson of the election commission Larysa Damarenka was surprisingly polite and provided all the needed information to me without any obstacles”.

“When they started to open the ballot boxes, I was literally in one meter from the table where the votes were counted. An observer from BRSM was near me, -- Ihar continues. – when they opened the early voting boxes, at which 132 out of 1253 votes cast votes, it was seen that the pile for the official candidate was about ¼ of papers for other candidates. There are five candidates registered in the district.”

“When the election day ballot box was opened, we noticed small packs of ballot papers folded in half (about 6-20 ballot papers in one pack)”. There were at least 6 or 7 packs like this. BRSM observer Raman agrees with that. In fact, from time to time it was he who pointed at such packs of ballot papers, folded in this doubtful manner. Later a big pile of about 200 ballot papers appeared on the edge of the table that was gradually spread among other ballot papers. These were clean unfolded ballot papers ticked off in favour of Yushkevich. BRSM observer Raman also saw that pile. Possibly, there were several piles like that because it was impossible to monitor the actions of all commission members at the same time.” – Ihar Barysau continues.

“When I asked a commission member, if there could be a folded pack of 6 ballot papers in a ballot box, he said it was not possible. However, he consulted with another commission member and said it was a big family who came to vote, and one family member collected all ballot papers folded them and dropped them in the ballot box. I sarcastically pointed out that probably they had at least six or seven big families in the precinct, with a lot more children in each family. The commission member did not utter a word”, -- the observer says.

Raman pointed out that he had heard that the elections were carried out that way, but now he had an opportunity to see that with his own eyes. He said he would never go to the polls again. Besides that he said he had seen several commission members come to the ballot box, close it from the views with their bodies, and drop something in the box.

“In the end of the voting, -- Ihar sums up, -- commission members took out the protocols with the voting results which had been written in advance. They only put the figures inside and signed the protocols. I should point out that before that final procedure the commission members were looking for an eraser. I really have great suspicions that the needed figures have already been written with a pencil in the protocols. The commission members only had to erase them and write the same figures with ink.”

The vote counting did not take much time. The commission managed to do the procedure in 45 minutes. As a result, Alexander Yushkevich received 5 times as many votes as his closest opponent Ales Silkou.     

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