Opposition activist demanding probe into Lukashenka's new ballot-rigging revelations
An opposition activist in Homyel has asked Prosecutor General Alyaksandr Kanyuk to probe Alyaksandr Lukashenka's most recent ballot-rigging revelations.
While meeting with a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on October 7, Mr. Lukashenka said that he had conducted the 2010 presidential election in accordance with the European Union's instructions and "had departed completely from our legislation".
According to him, the EU officials who visited Belarus at the end of the year demanded that the central election commission register all contenders. "One hundred thousand signatures are required for registration here," he said. "All right, the signature-collection stage passed. One [contender] in the Vitsyebsk district took a phone directory and copied everyone. How could he be registered? This one was not registered, the other 10 people were registered. I gave 600,000 of my signatures to them. I had about 2.7 million signatures, and I gave them [600,000] so that the central election commission would register them. They registered everyone under my iron pressure".
In his letter to the prosecutor general, Uladzimir Syakerka, chairman of the Homyel regional organization of the "Spravedlivy Mir" (Just World) Belarusian Party of the Left, accuses Mr. Lukashenka of gross violations of Belarusian regulations and demands an investigation.
It is necessary to investigate whether Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, and its other members were involved in the frauds, Mr. Syakerka says.
Not a single government official so far has denied the claims made by Mr. Lukashenka during the October 7 press conference, which means that they were true, he says.
Mr. Syakerka asks why the 2010 presidential election was conducted, as Mr. Lukashenka claimed, by him personally, and why he followed the EU's instructions and not the Electoral Code.
"By what right did we 'completely depart from our legislation'?" Mr. Syakerka says. "What provisions of the Electoral Code allowed signatures collected by presidential candidate Lukashenka to be handed over to other candidates? Whom did candidate Lukashenka give his signatures and how did that happen technically?"
At the end of 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office rejected a petition by a large group of prominent opposition politicians and public figures to institute criminal proceedings over Mr. Lukashenka's revelations of ballot-rigging in the 2006 presidential election.
In particular, Mr. Lukashenka said that he had received 93 percent of the vote in the election but ordered the percentage to be reduced to around 80 percent.
However, the Prosecutor General's Office said that there was no documentary evidence of any violations of the Electoral Code during the ballot counting process or the announcement of its results.
While meeting with a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on October 7, Mr. Lukashenka said that he had conducted the 2010 presidential election in accordance with the European Union's instructions and "had departed completely from our legislation".
According to him, the EU officials who visited Belarus at the end of the year demanded that the central election commission register all contenders. "One hundred thousand signatures are required for registration here," he said. "All right, the signature-collection stage passed. One [contender] in the Vitsyebsk district took a phone directory and copied everyone. How could he be registered? This one was not registered, the other 10 people were registered. I gave 600,000 of my signatures to them. I had about 2.7 million signatures, and I gave them [600,000] so that the central election commission would register them. They registered everyone under my iron pressure".
In his letter to the prosecutor general, Uladzimir Syakerka, chairman of the Homyel regional organization of the "Spravedlivy Mir" (Just World) Belarusian Party of the Left, accuses Mr. Lukashenka of gross violations of Belarusian regulations and demands an investigation.
It is necessary to investigate whether Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, and its other members were involved in the frauds, Mr. Syakerka says.
Not a single government official so far has denied the claims made by Mr. Lukashenka during the October 7 press conference, which means that they were true, he says.
Mr. Syakerka asks why the 2010 presidential election was conducted, as Mr. Lukashenka claimed, by him personally, and why he followed the EU's instructions and not the Electoral Code.
"By what right did we 'completely depart from our legislation'?" Mr. Syakerka says. "What provisions of the Electoral Code allowed signatures collected by presidential candidate Lukashenka to be handed over to other candidates? Whom did candidate Lukashenka give his signatures and how did that happen technically?"
At the end of 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office rejected a petition by a large group of prominent opposition politicians and public figures to institute criminal proceedings over Mr. Lukashenka's revelations of ballot-rigging in the 2006 presidential election.
In particular, Mr. Lukashenka said that he had received 93 percent of the vote in the election but ordered the percentage to be reduced to around 80 percent.
However, the Prosecutor General's Office said that there was no documentary evidence of any violations of the Electoral Code during the ballot counting process or the announcement of its results.