Elections 2015: Registration of nominating groups begins on July 1

The CEC will start to register the initiative groups of presidential candidates on July 1, Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission Mikalai Lazavik told Euroradio.

Mikalai Lazavik, "You can apply for registration, when the decision of the House of Representatives on the election date comes into force. You can do it immediately after the publication of the decision and until July 17. If it was adopted today, tomorrow it will be made public."

The registration documents will be reviewed within five days. But the collection of signatures begins on July 23, as all applicants must start at the same time, adds Mikalai Lazavik.


Potential candidates will need to submit documents for registration of the initiative group before or on July 17.

On July 23, the registered initiative groups will start collecting signatures for their candidates.


The headquarters of candidates are to submit at least 100 thousand signatures in order to register a candidate before August 21. Within 10 days, the commissions will check at least 20% of signatures. If there are 15% of invalid ones, there will be an additional check of 15% of signatures. If after two inspections it is be found that among the verified signatures  more than 15% are invalid, the signature will be void.

"All the signatures coming from the area will be declared invalid. If Minsk rayon is checked, and there are 15 percent of invalid signatures, all the signatures collected for a candidate in the Minsk rayon will not be considered," explains an electoral law expert Syarhei Alfer.


The candidate registration will be held on September 6-15. If need be, it may continue for 5 days. Until this date, any candidate promotion is prohibited. You can only set up pickets for collection of signatures and collecting signatures in people's homes. Members of the initiative group can show and tell information about the candidate, but do not have the right to leave flyers.

On September 17, you can start the campaign. It will be allowed to distribute advertising leaflets, and candidates will speak on TV and radio.

On election day, October 11, no campaigning is possible. But the posters put up prior to that can remain on the streets.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a second round. It will bring together the two candidates who received the most votes. The second round must be held no later than October 25.

If there is no second round, then the election results must be officially finalized until October 21, but usually everything is clear already at night.


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