10 people have a real chance of becoming presidential candidates in Belarus

November 9, Minsk / Yekaterina Nechayeva - BELTA /. Ten people have real chances to become presidential candidates in Belarus. This was announced to a BELTA correspondent by the secretary of the Central Commission for Elections and National Referendums, Nikolai Lozovik. According to the preliminary results of the verification of the authenticity of signatures in support of the nomination of presidential candidates, ten contenders who submitted more than 100,000 signatures to the election commissions, with the exception of Vladimir Provalsky, retained the right to further participate in the election campaign and the opportunity to become candidates. "All potential candidates, with the exception of Vladimir Provalsky, have retained the right to be registered as presidential candidates. The number of verified signatures in support of each of the ten contenders exceeds 100,000," said Nikolai Lozovik, summarizing the preliminary results of the verification of signatures in district and city election commissions. Thus, the CEC may register the current head of state Alexander Lukashenko, as well as Grigory Kostusev, Alexei Mikhalevich, Vladimir Neklyaev, Yaroslav Romanchuk, Vitaly Rymashevsky, Andrei Sannikov, Nikolai Statkevich, Viktor Tereshchenko, Dmitry Uss as candidates for the post of President of Belarus. Nikolai Lozovik does not rule out that the largest number of presidential candidates in the history of Belarus may be registered during the current election campaign. According to him, all ten have real chances. They have already passed the most responsible stage of the election campaign - nomination, and a simpler stage remains - submitting a written application to the CEC to agree to run for president, a questionnaire with biographical data, and income and property declarations (of the nominated candidate, his spouse, adult close relatives living with him and maintaining a common household). Commenting on the signature verification procedure, the CEC secretary emphasized that it was lenient and liberal, the approach to all contenders was the same, and any doubts were interpreted in favor of potential candidates in full accordance with the electoral legislation. "The verification regime can be called lenient so that no one can claim an overly harsh, biased approach. The liberalization that occurred during the collection of signatures continued during the verification of signatures," said Nikolai Lozovik. The Central Election Commission intends to register the candidates by November 19, so that they can conduct an agitation campaign for a month before the elections. The presidential elections in Belarus are scheduled for December 19, 2010. -0-