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Lukashenko goes to the sixth term
A new presidential election campaign has started in Belarus. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been consistently leading the country since 1994, has already submitted his candidacy for the sixth time.
Alexander Lukashenko is preparing for the sixth time to be re-elected as the country’s president. No one believes in the honesty and competitiveness of the electoral process in Belarus for a long time, but those who want to craft the Old Man campaign are present in the ballots on August 9.
What to expect from Lukashenko’s election this time?
“Applicants” as a selection
There are 22 more “applicants” on the list of candidates alongside the current president. These are the unemployed, pensioners, private entrepreneurs and representatives of other professions.
Among them is a deputy, Oleg Gaydukevich, 43 years old. He is a member of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus and the Liberal Democratic Party.
Failure of the primaries
Belarusian political parties positioning themselves as opponents have refused to participate in the upcoming presidential “election”. Although initially the opposition wanted to do something like primaries to select their candidate.
The primaries were admitted to the vice-president of the Belarusian Popular Front party Alexei Yanukevich; Chairman of the United Civil Party, Nikolay Kozlov; co-chair of the organizing committee for the creation of the Belarusian party of Christian Democracy (BCD), Pavel Sevyarynets; the head of the movement for freedom, Yuri Gubarevich; BCD Organizing Committee Co-Chair Olga Kovalkova.
But in the end, the primaries were unable to logically conclude the procedure for determining a single presidential candidate.
There is a video blogger
The company of classic candidates this time is diluted by the popular Belarusian video blogger Sergey Tikhanovsky. On May 6, he was detained near Mogilev, and is now serving a 15-day period of arrest in a Gomel prison for participating in last year’s demonstration in support of Belarusian independence. On the day of the arrest on the Tikhanovsky channel, a recording appeared in which the blogger explained that the subscribers asked him to participate in the presidential campaign because “they do not believe and do not see a single candidate whom they can follow and who they can trust”.
The name of Tikhanovsky’s channel “Country for Life” is similar to the campaign slogan, but is in fact a platform for the expression of various alternative opinions. Tikhanovsky eagerly interviews opposition politicians, toured the regions and registered complaints about local problems, but has not yet made the transition from declaring injustice to a specific political program.
Lukashenko’s Associate and Opposition Banker
Unexpectedly, diplomat Valery Tsepkalo, one of Lukashenko’s oldest associates, who assisted him in the 1994 elections, the former Belarusian ambassador to the United States, announced his intention to run for president.
Now he is carefully criticizing the existing order of things in the country. Belarusian experts are already guessing: the new candidate is a spoiler, Lukashenko’s combat partner, or really defies the system. The chain can embody the dream of a certain third way, of a smooth transit of power without revolutions and upheavals, of a smooth departure from the archaic of authoritarian power towards Western liberalism and democracy, new methods of organizing the state and society based on partnership, cooperation and horizontal interaction.
If Tsepkalo appears on the ballot, it is very possible that for a significant part of the voters he will be seen as a real personal alternative to the current president, which means that there will be intrigue in the elections.
On May 12, Viktor Babariko, Chairman of the Board of Belgazprombank OJSC, announced his intention to run for office on August 9. Soon after, he resigned.
But, perhaps, none of the applicants expected until June 19 will simply collect the necessary number of signatures to apply. Around then it will be clear whether there is at least some reason that the dream of intrigue in the presidential election or Lukashenko’s reelection for a new term is very quiet and routine.
