MINSK, 22 January (BelTA) - The latest episode of the documentary series Time Chose Us aired by the Belarus 1 TV channel looked back at the situation at polling stations in 2020, BelTA has learned.
On 9 August, the tension at polling stations began to increase in the afternoon. People were not able to vote. Provocateurs used the already tested tactic of “merry-go-rounds”. They deliberately delayed the process, staying in voting booths for 5-10 minutes and not leaving polling stations for a long time. By the evening, fake queues started forming near some polling stations. By their closing time, people were shouting that the authorities were intentionally preventing citizens from exercising their right to vote.
“Near 20.00 we began to receive information that people were not leaving several polling stations. Later we realized that the queues were created deliberately. There were enormous queues of people who allegedly did not have time to vote. We did not know what to do. Natalya Ivanovna [Kochanova, Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic] received a call from the head of state. Certainly, she reported about this situation,” Natalya Eismont said.
“I told Aleksandr Grigorievich that there were still queues at polling stations. By law, we had to close them at 20.00. People had every opportunity to exercise their right to vote during the early voting and the main election day,” Natalya Kochanova stressed. "I thought that probably we should close them at 20.00 and that's it. But Aleksandr Grigorievich said to me: 'No, we should extend the working hours of polling stations, let people vote. I assure you that in 20 minutes queues will be gone'. I immediately instructed to extend the working hours of polling stations to give people more time to vote. It worked: the queues gradually disappeared."
On 9 August 2020, the work of 33 polling stations across the country was blocked. Members of 33 election commissions faced psychological pressure.
“There were still some working polling stations. I decided to go and see what was going on. That's how I came to a school on Kamayskaya Street. I went into the schoolyard. I saw that there were quite a lot of people standing there. I went up to the porch and asked: 'What happened? Why didn't you vote? 'We could not!' I went in and saw these poor workers of the commission sitting there. All of them were exhausted. There were two polling stations in this school, but one of them was already closed. And the other had a huge queue,” Natalya Kochanova emphasized. The queues were caused by people who deliberately stayed in voting booths for ten minutes, delaying the process.
You can learn more about the big events of our country's history in BelTA's YouTube project How It Was.
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