Official observers defend opposition monitors in Vitsebsk

This is what Alexander Vinagradau, a local candidate from the Belarusian Party of Communists told the European Radio for Belarus.  Mr Vinagradau noted that local election commissions were very reluctant to cooperate with opposition observers. They were seated so far from the commission members that they had no opportunity to see the hand-out of the ballot papers. There was also no information about the number of voters who took part in the early voting.

Vinagradau: All the chairpersons of the commissions says that they do not wich to provide this information, but one of them said that only the local town hall was eligible to file these data.

At the same time, there were cases of solidarity between the opposition and pro-government observers:

Vinagradau: Apart from ours, there are observers from the pro-Lukashenka organizations (BRSM) and veterans' organizations. But at the polling stations, even them try to show solidarity with our representatives at times.