Lukashenko's main opponent in the elections has been identified
Last Friday at 19:00 the first stage of the presidential election campaign in Belarus ended. Those wishing to compete for the seat currently occupied by Alexander Lukashenko (or simply hype and get their 15 minutes of fame) submitted documents to the Central Election Commission. According to Belarusian law, in order to become a presidential candidate, you need to assemble an initiative group of at least 100 people, who, in turn, must collect 100000 signatures required for nomination.
The biggest events that some predicted did not happen. Lukashenko ran for a sixth term, while Prime Minister Sergei Rumas, Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei and Speaker of the Upper House of Parliament Natalya Kochanova, who were tipped to be Batka’s successors, remained in their places without demonstrating presidential ambitions. I still didn’t take such forecasts seriously. The formation of an initiative group by one of the top officials could not go unnoticed by Lukashenko, and he will not simply give up power.
But instead of a nominee from the nomenklatura, two candidates appeared on the political scene at once, head and shoulders superior to anyone from the standard opposition deck.
First, the former head of the High Technology Park, Valery Tsepkalo, announced his nomination, and then the chairman of the board of Belgazprombank, Viktor Babariko, who immediately resigned and focused entirely on politics.
The first one at first looked even more experienced and high-status, but made several mistakes at the start and, in the end, gathered only 555 people into the initiative group. This is not critical, and a lot depends on the level of preparation, but experience shows that it will be very difficult for such a group to collect signatures.
Thus, banker Viktor Babariko turned out to be Lukashenko’s main rival in the presidential elections. In 3 days he recruited 5500 people into the initiative group. This is the highest result among all opponents of Lukashenko during all the years of his rule.
Babariko is a moderate liberal and, as befits a banker, a pragmatist. Mentally, he is perhaps closer to Europe, but, as a person who knows how to count money, he understands perfectly well that without the Union State with Russia, the republic simply cannot survive. It is curious that he himself does not position himself as a pro-Russian candidate and even uses rhetoric close to the pro-Western opposition, but most of this opposition and officialdom see in him the “hand of Moscow.”
What about the rest? Traditionally, a large initiative group was brought together by the nominee of the Liberal Democrats, Oleg Gaidukevich, who inherited the chairmanship of the party from his father. The Gaidukevichs are regular participants in the presidential elections, but they cannot be called real competitors to Lukashenko. It will be like Zhirinovsky running against Putin. Bright, loud, but completely safe.
The pro-Western opposition this time is represented by Andrei Dmitriev and Anna Kanopatskaya. Both are a kind of dissidents within the opposition, rejected by its marginal majority. Moreover, Dmitriev is quite capable of collecting signatures and conducting a brilliant campaign. He is a talented political strategist who previously brought into the light of God the half-forgotten songwriter Neklyaev and generally unknown Tatyana Korotkevich, and made presidential candidates out of them. For his own sake, he will try this time.
Social Democrat Sergei Cherechen, who recently headed one of the Social Democratic parties, also has a theoretical chance of competing to get on the ballot. But he has little experience in politics.
The only candidate who prioritizes strengthening integration within the Union State is Andrei Ivanov, who is still little known outside the pro-Russian political community. It was put forward by several public associations, mostly left-wing.
He has two problems - a small initiative group and the fact that he was born in Tomsk. The fact is that the Belarusian Constitution contains a phrase that only a citizen of the Republic of Belarus by birth can be president. But legally, this is not at all the same as “a citizen born on the territory of Belarus.” Since the minimum age for the presidency is 35 years, the appearance of the first candidate - a citizen by birth - is possible no earlier than 2026. Now all the candidates were citizens of the USSR by birth, and the leader of the ultranationalists Zenon Poznyak, born in the spring of 1944 in Western Belarus, was a member of the Third Reich, which did not stop him from running for office at one time.
In any case, an interesting legal conflict emerges, and Ivanov promises to fight against this discriminatory and illiterately drafted norm.
Here, perhaps, are all the candidates who can apply for something. The remaining few dozen are either freaks or supporting politicians who want to remind themselves of themselves.
A separate category is the trio of participants in the opposition primaries, who have not decided which of them will run for president and decided, contrary to promises, to submit documents, but not to collect signatures.
And a very special case is “Statkevich’s Pokemon”. When one of the opposition leaders was made clear that he would not be a presidential candidate due to his criminal record, he decided to nominate three dozen little-known characters in his place to make it more convenient to organize protests. But the Central Election Commission did not appreciate the creativity, and “Pokemon” is banned with a list.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.