Slonim: election commission hides from observers
In the morning of 10 July members of the Slonim
democratic association Ivan Bedka and Viktar Marchyk came to the Slonim
District Executive Committee to find when the first sitting of Slonim
constituency election commission #58 would take place, as they intended to
attend it as observers, nominated by electors.
They visited six office rooms in the executive committee, but received no
answer. Even the commission member who would probably be elected its head,
Alena Machalina, said she did not know when the sitting would take place, but
promised to tell them as soon as she would found about it.
However, the sitting started at 12
a.m., an hour after Bedka and Marchyk left the executive
committee. Predictably enough, nobody told them about it. Despite this, Viktar
Marchyk managed to get there. As expected, Alena Machalina was elected head of
the commission, as it was done during earlier elections.
As a result, in the morning of 11 July Ivan Bedka paid another visit to the
executive committee and entered a complaint in the complaint book. There he
stated that Machalina demonstrated a neglect of her duties by refusing to
inform him about the time and place of the sitting and asked why the
organization of the election was held in such a secrecy.
“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”
