Belarus Approves Five Candidates for Presidential Election
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Minsk, Dec 23 (NationPress) The central elections commission in Belarus has officially registered five candidates for the presidential election on Monday.
The candidates include the current president, Alexander Lukashenko, the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus, Oleg Gaidukevich, the head of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice, Alexander Khizhnyak, entrepreneur Anna Kanopatskaya, and Sergei Syrankov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus.
These candidates were confirmed after a thorough verification process of the signatures gathered in their support, ensuring their validity and the required quantity.
According to the commission, Lukashenko's campaign has amassed over 2.5 million signatures, while the other candidates have each secured slightly over 100,000 signatures.
Igor Karpenko, the chairman of the commission, announced that 93 international observers have been accredited to oversee the presidential elections, alongside 951 national observers associated with local commissions.
The pre-election campaigning phase is set to begin on January 1, 2025.
The signature collection process for presidential nominations concluded earlier this month.
From November 7, pickets were organized across Belarus to gather signatures supporting potential presidential candidates.
Previously, the Central Election Commission confirmed the establishment of polling stations for the upcoming elections.
A total of 5,325 polling stations have been established, including 925 in the Gomel region, 894 in the Minsk region, 861 in Brest region, 701 in Minsk city, 683 in Mogilev region, 672 in Vitebsk region, and 589 in Grodno region.
The presidential elections are scheduled for January 26, 2025.
As per the law, the president of Belarus is elected through direct voting, and a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the votes to win. If no candidate achieves this majority, the top two candidates will enter a runoff, with the one receiving a simple majority declared the winner.
Presidential elections occur every five years. In the last election on August 9, 2020, Lukashenko was reelected for his sixth term, receiving 80.1 percent of the votes.
