Mazyr District Election Commission composed of state officials, members of councils and heads of enterprises

At first glance, there are no bosses or officials in the list of members of Mazyr District Election Commission – there are only “representatives of citizens, trade unions and public associations”. However, after a close examination it becomes clear that there are only heads of enterprises, officers of the executive committee and even two members of the district council!

In particular, the commission includes a member of Mazyr District Council Siarhei Karobkin, who worked at many positions at the executive committee (as the head of the department of youth affairs, then – the department of sports and tourism, then – as a head of a sportive complex, after which he returned to the executive committee). Mr. Karobkin is also the aide of the member of the House of Representatives Siarhei Kanoplich. However, this heroic biography is not mentioned in the in the report about the establishment of the commission, Karobkin is mentioned as a nominee of citizens. His colleague, member of the district council Tamara Brel, director of the factory “Nadex”, was nominated to the commission by the labor collective of the accounting department of the factory.

The election commission also includes the officers of the district executive committee Beranika Baikova, Larysa Chornaya and Mikhail Pashynski, who also worked in the district election commission during the latest presidential elections, as well as Mikalai Dziahtserau, head of the Mazyr branch of the “BPS-Sberbank”, and Natallia Usikava, director of the hotel complex “Prypiats”. Baikova, Dziahtserau and Usikava were also nominated to the commission “by citizens”. Mikhail Pashynski (business manager of the executive committee) was nominated by a trade union.

Another member of the election commission, Piatro Zykun, until recently worked as head of the police department, and now heads the printing company "Color", which prints the newspaper issued by another member of the commission, the chief editor of the local newspaper "Zhyttsio Palessia" Larysa Chornaya, who was included in the commission as a representative of the trade union of agriculture workers.

Larysa Chornaya participated in the all-Belarusian Assembly in 2010, after which she mentioned President's surname 25 times in one article, assuring him of her ardent support in the elections of 2010.

According to the law, civil servants mustn't comprise more than one third of an election commission. However, this principle is hardly observed in Mazyr District Election Commission, as well as in many other commissions established for holding the current “elections”. Another member of the aforementioned commission is the head of the Interdistrict Inspectorate for the Protection of Flora and Fauna Uladzimir Lahimakhau.

One banker was not enough for the commission, that's why Ryta Stsiapanchanka, head of Mazyr branch of "Belzneshekanombank" was included too, as a nominee of the "Belarusian Union of Women". The head of the bank branch also attended the all-Belarusian Assembly in 2010, as well as the head of the hotel complex “Prypiats” Natallia Usikava.

To put it short, all these people represent mythical public in the commission.