Prosecutor General's Office orders additional inquiry into alleged ballot rigging in Minsk's Malininsky district

2003-04-14 13:00:00

Minsk, 14 April. The Prosecutor General's Office has ordered the Minsk City Prosecutor's Office to conduct an additional inquiry into the alleged ballot-rigging reported in Minsk's Malininsky electoral district after the March 2 first round of local elections. The Minsk City Prosecutor's Office had its report on its first inquiry returned to it, lawmaker Vladimir Novosyad told BelaPAN. According to him, Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Kupriyanov suggested in his letter that more witnesses should be questioned, and that a new report be submitted to the Prosecutor General's Office by April 17. The district's voting results were annulled because, according to the local election commission, neither of the candidates managed to gain 50 percent plus one vote necessary to win in a two-person race. The official count showed that Aleksandr Melnikov, aide to Mr. Novosyad, fell short of just 49 votes to carry the election. Mr. Melnikov ran against Vasily Buklanov, director of a vocational school. Mr. Novosyad and two other members of the House of Representatives, Valery Frolov and Vladimir Parfenovich, who were observing the voting, discovered a discrepancy between the count results reported by four precinct commissions to the district election commission, and the results stated in the copies of the reports given to observers. Mr. Novosyad accused the precinct commissions of "stealing" 600 votes from his aide. The central election commission, which on March 10 recounted the ballots that had been cast at four polling stations, said that the difference was just one or two votes between its figures and the figures reported by the precinct commissions. However, the observers appealed to the prosecutorial agency to institute criminal proceedings in connection with what they called the falsification of the election results. In mid-March, the Minsk City Prosecutor's Office sent its findings to the Prosecutor General's Office.