The end of June marked the beginning of a (likely brief) respite in Belarus’s presidential election campaign, but it may prove to be the lull before the storm. After the elimination of former deputy foreign minister and Minsk High-Tech Park founder Valery Tsepkalo’s candidacy because of allegedly too many invalid signatures collected on his behalf, it is expected that the same fate will befall Belgazprombank head Victor Babariko. The latter submitted as many as 360,000 signatures needed to be registered as a candidate in this year’s election; and while around 200,000 of those turned out to be faulty, he still had enough for the Central Election Commission to declare he could run – even from behind bars (he was arrested last month on various corruption and theft – related charges). But valid signatures are not enough, and now his income declaration is likely to disqualify him. Should this happen, the incumbent, President Aleksander Lukashenko, will find himself facing off against a much weaker crop of rivals. This is notable since, according to Kirill Koktysh, a Minsk-born political science professor at the Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Lukashenko’s actual popularity rating hovers somewhere around 30 percent. That estimation is buttressed by April 2020 polling results from the city of Minsk (25 percent support for Lukashenko), which usually registers lower ratings for the long-serving head of state than does Belarus at large. The presidential election will be held on August 9.
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Belarus' riot police watch opposition supporters during a gathering to support candidates seeking to challenge President Alexander Lukashenko in the upcoming presidential elections in Minsk on June 19, 2020.
