Are most of election commissions formed illegitimately?
- 18.09.2008, 9:49
On Thursday a point about illegal forming of almost all precinct election commissions to be put before the Central Election Commission. Human rights activists, representatives of political parties and public associations will push for forming election commissions anew. There are many grounds for that. But the main thing, as lawyer Harry Pahanyajla explained, is that the principles of commissions forming are not in conformity with the Electoral code.
“Article 35 of the Electoral Code specifies that only one person representing this or that organisation or labour collective could become a member of an election commission. And our commissions are formed according to just the opposite principle. For instance, a headmaster is often the chairman of a commission, a head teacher is his deputy, while teachers of the same school are members of the commission. In general, it means full dependence. And it is absolutely illegal,” the human rights activist said in an interview to the “Belorusskiy Partizan”.
It is true, if we open the Electoral Code we can read in Article 35 in the first paragraph:
“Political parties, other public associations, labour collectives and organisations, or collectives of their structural units, as well as citizens who submit applications, can nominate ONLY ONE REPRESENTATIVE as a member of a corresponding territorial, district or precinct commission”.
And what has taken place in reality?
For instance, let’s take the first constituency, Brest Western constituency No. 1.
At the precinct No. 4 we see the following make-up of the commission:
1. Ina Andranovich has been nominated by an employees meeting of the structural unit of the joint stock company “Brestselmash”.
2. Anatol Hanovich - nominated by an employees meeting of the structural unit of the joint stock company “Brestselmash”.
3. Syarhei Kalenik -- nominated by an employees meeting of the structural unit of the joint stock company “Brestselmash”.
4. Alyaksei Kazlyakouski -- nominated by an employees meeting of the structural unit of the joint stock company “Brestselmash”…
And 11 more members of this election commission have been nominated by an employees meeting of the structural unit of the joint stock company “Brestselmash”. There isn’t a single “stranger”, even for show. Notably, the information is taken from an absolutely official source, the website of the Brest regional executive committee, so there is no mistake about that.
It looks like those who were forming election commissions had forgotten to reread the Electoral Code.
As the commissions have been formed in violation of the law, participation in them is illegal and meaningless. Because of anon-confidence to precinct commissions and absence of democrats in them, many political structures will boycott the “elections”.