Registration of initiative groups finishes on 24 September
MINSK, 23 September (BelTA) – 24 September is the deadline for registering initiative groups to nominate presidential candidates at the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus, BelTA learnt from the CEC.
The persons seeking to run for presidency this year should present the documents to the CEC up to and including 24 September. On that day the CEC will work until 7pm.
Potential candidates should submit a request to register their initiative group and the list of its members. This year the CEC has introduced a requirement to submit two copies of the request – a hard copy and an electronic copy. The latter can help speed up the issuance of certificates for all the members of initiative groups. The deadline to issue certificates is very tight – by 30 September all the members of initiative groups should get the certificates to be able to start signature collection.
The decision which initiative groups to register will be made at a session on 26 September. After that the CEC should hand over certificates and signature sheets to the members of initiative groups within five days.
By now, the CEC has registered only one initiative group of 1,300 people. This initiative group will nominate Chairman of the Council of Association of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Viktor Tereshchenko. The CEC has received the applications from another two groups consisting of over 2,500 and 200 people to nominate Vladimir Neklyayev, Director of Research and Education Center Forward Movement, and Self-Employed Businessman Vladimir Provalinsky respectively.
According to the CEC, it expected that potential candidates will submit the documents to register their initiative groups closer to the deadline. During the 2006 presidential campaign eight initiative groups were registered, during the 2001 campaign 23 initiative groups.
Simultaneously the nomination of members of territorial commissions is in progress. It will conclude on 26 September. All in all, 155 such commissions will be formed (including oblast commissions, Minsk City commission, 118 district commissions and 6 commissions in towns that consist of only one municipal district). The right to nominate their representatives to the election commissions is granted to individuals, labor collectives, political parties and NGOs. The NGOs are entitled to one third of the places in election commissions.
