Minsk: chair of election commission tried to turn out candidate’s proxy out of polling station

Today, at about 12 a.m., Andrei Paprotski, proxy to the UCP candidate Fiodar Maslennikau, was approached by chair of the election commission and asked to leave the observers’ table at polling station #48 in Minsk’s Chyhunachnaya constituency. The official said a proxy could not be an observer.

After Fiodar Maslennikau arrived at the station and it turned out that a candidate’s proxy can be an election observer (under par. 3 of Art. 13 of the Electoral Code), the election commission’s secretary said the proxy’s ID was fake. Then the candidate phoned the election commission of Kastrychnitski district, whose representative said he could not verify the validity of the ID.

As a result, the candidate’s proxy was allowed to observe the voting procedures at the polling station. However, the commission’s chair he would only be let observe the counting of votes two meters away from the tables.

‘Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections’