Valyantsin Stefanovich: Did one third of voters leave Belarus on polling day?
- 26.04.2010, 11:52
A high number of persons who had taken part in the early voting shows that the process of elections had been "orchestrated" and held under duress.
Such an opinion had been expressed by one of the members of "Human rights elections" campaign Valyantsin Stefanovich in an interview to BelaPAN.
We remind that according to official data, 29.3% of voters have taken part in the early voting.
"On the one hand, it is a surprising fugure, and on the other hand, there is nothing strange in that. No suprises, as almost in any election campaign in Belarus about 25% of voters take part in ealry voting. This figure is surprising as not much attenntion is usually paid to local elections traditionally. That is hwy voters turnout for this election was lifted. And the fact that 29.3% of voters had take part in the elections, shows that the authorities really wanted to demonstrate how actively our citizens participate even in this insignifican elections. This figure also shows that participation in early voting is ordered by higher authorities, orchestrated and held under duress," Stefanovich noted.
As said by him, the procedure of early voting should be rather an exception, not an obligatory thing. "What for this procedure had been invented? For people who cannot take part in the elections for some serious reasons to be able to take part in the elections. But nobody would believe that one third of the voters left the country on the polling day!" Stefanovich said.
Besides, the human rights activist continued, the procedure of the early voting does not allow observers to control the just character of the voting. "In the final protocol of election commissions only the total number of votes is indicated. It is not said there how the people voted during the early voting and on the polling day. Besides, observation over the process of voting for 5 days of early voting is very difficult. So there should not be such a procedure as early voting like we have in our country at all," Stefanovich stated.