CEC: Seven people running to become candidates for President of Belarus

There are 82 days left until the elections of the President of Belarus. Today, the Central Election Commission completed the registration of citizens' initiative groups in support of the nomination of candidates. At the meeting of the CEC, decisions were made on registration or refusal.

The meeting of the CEC actually completed the stage of registration of initiative groups. The submission of documents was until November 1, and then another five days were given for review of documents. Thus, three more initiative groups were added to the 4. These are the initiative groups of Sergei Bobrikov, Sergei Syrankov and Anna Konopatskaya.

Previously, groups were registered to collect signatures in support of the nomination of the current president Alexander Lukashenko, Oleg Gaidukevich (MP, Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party), Alexander Khizhnyak (Chairman of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice), Olga Chemodanova (former press secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, head of the main department of ideological work and youth affairs of the Minsk City Executive Committee).

In total, 11 applications were submitted from initiative groups during the period of receiving documents. The initiative groups of Alexander Drozdov and Yuri Gubarevich were denied registration, and today a decision was made to refuse to register the initiative groups of Diana Kovaleva and Viktor Kulesh. The reasons are an insufficient number of members of the initiative groups and the submission of an application without a list of members of the initiative group.

According to the calendar plan, until November 4, places prohibited for picketing for the purpose of collecting signatures have been determined, and territorial commissions must be formed by November 6. From December 7 to 21, the CEC will accept documents required to register presidential candidates. By mid-January, voters will be sent messages about the time and place of voting; early voting awaits Belarus from January 21 to 25.

From November 7, registered initiative groups can begin collecting signatures from citizens; at least 100,000 must be collected. Territorial commissions across the country will check their authenticity; there are 153 of them.