Ryhor Kastusiou Proposed To Nominate Pavel Seviarynets As Common Candidate

Five opposition parties have announced the beginning of a common candidate election procedure.

Five opposition parties announced at a joint press conference that they had agreed to nominate a common candidate for the presidential election.

These are the For Freedom movement, BCD, BSDP (Hramada), the BPF Party and the United Civil Party, Radio Svaboda reports.

They have announced about the beginning of the procedure of choosing a common candidate, in which any willing Belarusian citizen across the country can take part. The Congress of Democratic Forces will announce the results of nominating a common candidate.

Candidates will be chosen at the primaries. The common candidate will be elected according to the 4 components with a system of points: voting during trips in the regions (30 points), voting on the Internet (30 points), voting at the final Congress of Democratic Forces (30 points). Another 10 points of support will be distributed among the participants of the structure, which organizes the procedures.

There will be six demands to the common candidate: to support the Belarusian language, to speak out for independence and against the dictatorship, and not to be against the traditional family values.

During a joint press conference, BPF Chairman Ryhor Kastusiou proposed Pavel Seviarynets as the common candidate and called on others to support him, tut.by writes.

- This is a historic day - the opposition has united. We have united to defend the independence of our country. The campaign of 2020 is the campaign of our independence. I'm a little critical of the primaries procedure. And now I have a proposal, from the perspective of my life experience, which will slightly break our plan, but I must voice it. There's a man among us who has shown what he is willing to do for independence. That is why I want to propose to go another way in determining a common candidate and already today I propose a common candidate for presidency - Pavel Seviarynets. This is a bit unexpected, but we are ready to compromise our political interests, - Ryhor Kastusiou said.

UCP head Mikalai Kazlou reminded that the parties had signed an agreement, which they decided to follow and which implies the choice of a common candidate from the opposition through the primaries. We shall remind you that today the leaders of the center-right coalition have gathered a press conference to announce that a common candidate will be elected by May through online and offline voting from among the democratic opposition forces.

- For two or three months we will conduct primaries and will gain strength, we want to break the scenario of today's authorities. We will stand for dismissing Yarmoshyna as the CEC chairperson and for Lukashenka not to take part in the elections. We urge everyone to participate in the elections and choose a candidate. We have two plans: to nominate a common candidate and to boycott in case the repression starts and the candidate is not registered, - Pavel Seviarynets stated. Speaking about his personal ambitions, Seviarynets noted that on the eve of the BCD congress he had been approved as a candidate for the primaries of the center-right coalition.