GAME WITHOUT RULES

GAME WITHOUT RULES

Belarus' central election commission (CEC) annulled on September 8 the registration of all election observers nominated by the Vyasna human rights center. The CEC claims that Vyasna forged observer nomination records. The CEC said it was also likely to annul tonight the registration of the observers from the Lew Sapeha Foundation and the Belarusian Free Trade Union.

All these organizations are part of the domestic observer network that has announced its intention to conduct parallel vote tabulation (PVT). The authorities are visibly afraid of this procedure - they have repeatedly labeled it a provocation and charlatanism. However, none of the officials has explained so far what law the PVT violates.

The PVT uses official results taken from the records of the election commissions at 500 stations included in a representative nation-wide sample, which covers 7 percent of all stations. The sampling error should be minimal because the actual sample is not 500 stations but rather more than 400,000 voters who are likely to come to those stations. The PVT result will already accommodate possible falsifications during the early voting, which began on September 4 and cannot be controlled effectively. According to CEC figures more than 10 percent of the eligible electorate came to the polls before the last day of early voting. The PVT organizers give a figure of 13 percent.

Observers have already reported numerous violations, including ballot-stuffing. But the authorities are clearly afraid of the PVT figures, even if the results have already been distorted during early voting. The logical conclusion is there will be further fraud at a higher level -- the territorial commissions. BelaPAN has received information that the electoral process and the work of the commissions are controlled and directed by the executive agencies at all levels.

This fits the overall picture of the election campaign, in which the opposition coalition candidate Vladimir Goncharik met obstacles in places where the current ruler, Aleksandr Lukashenko, was given the green light. For example, the CEC reprimanded Goncharik for distributing free print materials. Some print runs of private newspapers were seized or censored. But the special issue of the state-owned daily Sovetskaya Belorussiya with pro-Lukashenko propaganda was put into mail boxes for free without any problems. The CEC did not inquire who paid for the 600,000-plus copies. The official newspapers and the state-controlled Belarusian Television publicized obviously fake opinion polls giving Lukashenko huge ratings. This was done even during the last ten days of the campaign, when all election polls are prohibited.

Police often harassed and detained Goncharik campaign activists, and Goncharik's meetings with voters were declared illegal. But the CEC was not interested in the source of financing for Lukashenko's meeting with the voters in Minsk's Palace of the Republic. The "right" voters came there in special buses, were properly fed and enjoyed a concert of quite expensive Russian pop stars.

And still the authorities do not believe that this campaign will result in an impressive victory for Lukashenko. Only this can explain their fears and the war against the domestic observers.


Аlex ZNATKEVICH, site editor

September 8