Tsentralny district of Homel: 51 precinct election commissions formed within 14 minutes by unanimous voting
The Tsentralny District
Executive Committee (DEC) of Homel formed the precinct election commissions of the district at its sitting
on 2 November. According to the member of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee
Viktar Adzinochanka, the sitting lasted 14 minutes, during which 51 election
commission were formed.
The sitting was lead by the DEC Chairperson
Aleh Barysenka. The speech about the formation of the precinct commissions was
delivered by the head of the organizational and personnel department of the DEC
Natallia Shumakova. According to her, the DEC
received 1,124 application for membership in the commissions. 5 parties and 7 NGOs delegated
340 representatives, 252 of which were included in the commissions, 301
representatives were nominated by collectives of institutions and enterprises
(165 included) and 483 persons were nominated by collecting electors’
signatures (209 included).
Shumakova explained the choice of candidates by the following motives: the
availability of practical experience in election campaigns, qualification of
candidates and the number of members in the organizations that delegated them.
Then Shumakova reported that
members of the executive committee received a draft resolution with the list of
those included in the PEC, and they need to vote. A question was raised whether
they should vote for all commissions at once, or for each one? The present
people decided to vote for the lists of all commissions at once and voted
unanimously for the draft resolution and the commission lists.
According to official
statistics, there are 1,114 polling stations in the Homel region. Precinct election commissions can
have from 5 to 19 members. There are more than 15,000 pretenders for memberships
in the commissions, 44% of which were nominated by collection of electors’
signatures, 19% - by collectives of institutions and enterprises, 36% - by NGOs
and political parties. From political parties,
According to official information, parties nominated just 2.2% of candidates for
precinct election commissions.
Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections