Only Lidziya Yarmoshyna has been counting votes longer
Euroradio has found an election committee member who has been counting votes since 1994 - it's only two years less than the CEC chairperson!
Svyatlana Staina is a member of the election committee of Homel-Jubelee constituency #31 now.
Svyatlana Staina has only missed the referendums in this period. She does not want to explain the reason. But she claims: the fact that election committee members get paid for their work was not important to her. She adds: experienced people should be included in commissions.
At the same time, Svyatlana Staina opposes to the kind of polls where observers are able to see ever ballot paper. She claims that elections have never been rigged in her constituency. It is simply impossible!
Svyatlana Staina: "You cannot rig elections the way somebody wants it. We count people's votes. How can you organize a mass replacement of ballot papers?! I do not understand it. I'm even starting to feel irritation because I have not been able to understand it for so many years. It is somebody's tales".
CEC secretary Mikalai Lazavik disagrees with the fact that "old-timers " should not be included in election committees. In his opinion, even if the number of such people reaches 10% or 15% it is not enough!
He thinks that it is silly to blacklist such people. By the way, none of the 12 election commetee heads "blacklisted" by EU will work at this year's election.
Photo by: http://photo.bymedia.net/
