Some 3,000 ballot-access signatures were collected for Alyaksandr Milinkevich, leader of the Movement for Freedom who seeks to run in the forthcoming House of Representatives elections, according to Yury Melyashkevich, head of the politician’s nomination group.
As Mr. Melyashkevich told reporters in Minsk on Monday, Mr. Milinkevich took part in 25 out of the 100 events at which the group gathered ballot-access signatures. "He could be seen in all areas of the district. Together with the nomination group he visited 10 apartment houses and talked to some 1000 people," Mr. Melyashkevich said.
"We want to conduct a standard election campaign, although we realize there can be no normal elections in Belarus," said Yuras Hubarevich, a member of Mr. Milinkevich’s nomination group.
According to him, pro-democracy forces have no joint strategy regarding the current election campaign. Someone is set to boycot the elections, someone wants to participate, and someone plans to withdraw before the vote, and that is why Mr. Milinkevich may turn out to be the only pro-democracy candidate "who is fighting for victory," he said
Mr. Hubarevich said that an opinion poll conducted by the nomination group had showed that almost 25 percent of voters in Uruchski Electoral District No. 109 were ready to vote for or would rather vote for Mr. Milinkevich. "While conducting the election campaign, we will seek to gain an electoral majority, we want to win the support of more than half of the district’s voters," Mr. Hubarevich said.
According to him, Mr. Milinkevich’s team intends to have three or four observers at each polling station. "With their help, we’ll try to defend our possible victory," he said. "We are going to work hard until the last day. We know the district’s problems. We’ll try to demonstrate that the opposition has real candidates who are ready to win the elections."
