Belarus | Jury members dismissed after revealing semi-final results
The EBU have confirmed that the members of the Belorussian jury for Eurovision 2019 have been dismissed after they broke the rules and revealed their votes from semi-final 1.
In an interview with tut.by, a Belorussian information and service website, the jurors revealed who they voted for in the first semi final of Eurovision 2019. This goes against the official rules of the Eurovision Song Contest which states that the results of the semi finals should not be revealed until after the grand final has finished.
"The Belorussian jury voting has been revealed in an interview contravening Eurovision Song Contest rules. In order to be compliant with the ESC voting regulations, the EBU has taken action and has dismissed the Belorussian jury from the Grand Final on Saturday. An aggregated result approved by the auditors will be used in order to determine to whom the Belarussian votes will be allocated."
Speaking to tut.by, Chairman of the Belorussian jury, Valeri Prigun said: "We determined the three winners almost unanimously. In general, in the first six or seven places we had almost no disputes. They started in 8-10th places. Then we met for about ten minutes."
Other members of the jury also spoke out about some of their favourites and least favourites from semi final 1, and which songs they voted for:
Anastasia Tikhanovich voted for Australia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Greece and Slovenia.
Angelina Mikulskaya said her favourite was Australia, whilst she didn't like Iceland as much and thus, down voting Hatari.
Artyom Mikhalenko made comments on both Georgia and San Marino's performances, but didn't directly reveal his favourites and least favourites.
Olga Ryzhikova's favourites were Australia, Czechia, Estonia and Georgia
Head of the jury, Valeri Prigun, voted for Czechia, Estonia and Georgia
