MINSK -- The chairwoman of Belarus's Central Election Commission, Lidziya Yarmoshyna, has rejected President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's recent statement that his vote tally in the last presidential election was tampered with, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports.
In an interview with Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency last week, Lukashenka said that 93 percent of the Belarusian people voted for him in 2006. "Since 93 percent is psychologically untenable, I gave the order so the figure would be not 93 but around 80," Lukashenka said.
Yarmoshyna told RFE/RL that the Central Election Commission received no directives during the presidential election whatsoever.
According to her, the commission published the numbers that it received from regional election commissions. "So, we reported whatever we received and summarized it," Yarmoshyna said.
She added that the commission is ready to publicize all documents received from the regional commissions in order to fully substantiate all of the statistics.