Voting kicks off in Belarusian presidential election

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko © Natalya Fedosenko/TASS. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.

MINSK, Aug 9, 2020, TASS. More than 5,700 polling stations opened on Sunday in the presidential election in Belarus, the Central Election Commission told TASS.

“Some 5,767 ballot stations were arranged for vote in the presidential election, all of them are ready to receive voters,” the CEC said. Some 44 polling stations opened abroad, according to the commission. In Russia, Belarusians can vote in diplomatic missions in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

Nearly 6.8 mln Belarusian citizens are eligible to vote. Some 32.24% of them took part in the early voting, which began on August 4 and ran until August 8. Minsk expects that given the high turnout in the early voting the election will be recognized as valid already in the first half of the day. For this, more than half of voters should cast their ballots.

Five candidates are running for president in Belarus – incumbent head of state Alexander Lukashenko, co-leader of the Govori Pravdu (Tell the Truth) public movement Andrei Dmitriyev, former member of the lower parliament house Anna Kanopatskaya, housewife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Gramada Sergei Cherchen. Lukashenko, 65, is seeking his sixth presidential term.

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