Former opposition candidate for Brest City Soviet set to continue pressing his complaint against election authorities

2007-02-09

By Larysa Shyhanava, BelaPAN
Brest, 9 February. Ihar Maslowski, head of the Brest regional organization of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada" (BSDP) who was a candidate for the Brest City Soviet in recent local elections, is determined to continue pressing his complaint against election authorities.
On January 15, i.e. the day after the polling day, Mr. Maslowski lodged a complaint with the Brest city election commission, urging it to invalidate the election results in his district because of what he called flagrant violations of the Electoral Code. He also petitioned the Leninski District Prosecutor's Office in Brest to bring to justice those responsible for "forgery of election documents" and "a knowingly false count of votes." Attached to his petition were observers' reports.
"It took the election commission almost a month to reply to me that it had not discovered any irregularities that could influence the election outcome in my district," Mr. Maslowski told BelaPAN, adding that he would now forward his petition to the Brest Regional Prosecutor's Office.
Thirteen members of the BSDP, which is led by imprisoned former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin, ran in the local elections in the region. Nine were on the ballot in the election for the Brest City Soviet, three vied for a seat on the Brest Regional Soviet and one ran for the Ivanava District Soviet. None of them was elected.