December 23, Pozirk. Belarus’ longtime ruler Alaksandar Łukašenka, his supporters Aleh Hajdukievič, Alaksandar Chižniak, Siarhiej Syrankoŭ as well as former MP Hanna Kanapackaja are official presidential candidates for the January poll, the central election commission has said.
Łukašenka has collected 2,518,145 ballot-access signatures, leaving other bidders far behind, the central election commission claimed.
The four remaining presidential hopefuls have barely reached the 100,000 threshold that allows qualifying for the race.
Hajdukievič, of the Liberal Democratic Party, collected 134,472 signatures; Siarhiej Syrankoŭ, of the pro-government Communist Party of Belarus, 125,577; former MP Hanna Kanapackaja, 121,077; Alaksandar Chižniak, leader of the pro-government Republican Party of Labor and Justice, 112,779.
The Belarusian opposition dismissed the election as a sham, noting that political reprisals prevent pro-democracy candidates from running and voters from freely expressing their will. Foreign-based observers from human rights groups say that the signature numbers are hardly credible and likely significantly inflated.
Belarus will hold its seventh presidential election from January 21 to 26, with the whole election cycle limited to just three months.
The current campaign is taking place in a purged political landscape amid a new wave of crackdown on regime critics.
Belarus has not held a single free and fair election since 1996 by the standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
