Registration of presidential candidates on September 10, rather than the deadline of September 15, will extend the campaign period to a month. This was stated by the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission of Belarus, Lidiya Yarmoshyna, on ONT TV channel, as reported by BELTA.
Registration of candidates for president on September 10, rather than the deadline of September 15, will extend the campaign period to a month. This was stated by the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission of Belarus, Lidiya Yarmoshyna, on ONT TV channel, as reported by BELTA.
Lidiya Yarmoshyna explained: "Since there are few candidates. We can already see that there will be no more than five. I think we will manage by the 10th (of September. - BELTA's note). Then the candidates' election campaign period will simply be extended. At least, it will not be 25 days, but a whole month."
In her opinion, the signature collection stage proceeded quite calmly and was not very active. "Although, at the picket level, in my view, it worked quite well, at least in the city of Minsk. Initially, voters were interested. Queues lined up at the pickets," said Lidiya Yarmoshyna.
She also added that candidates representing a viewpoint alternative to the official one were less active than five years ago. Responding to a question about the reasons for this, Lidiya Yarmoshyna said: "I think it's a lack of financial resources."
Furthermore, the head of the CEC believes that signature collection is the most interesting stage of the election campaign. In her opinion, once registered candidates begin their campaigning, they will exercise more self-censorship.
News of Belarus (BELTA)