NTV: Sannikov and Nyaklyaeu in leading echelon (Video)

Against common practice, NTV story about the presidential election wasn’t banned in Belarus.

The presidential election campaign gains momentum in Belarus. Initiative groups have started collecting signatures for candidates. There are 17 potential candidates. The name of Alyaksandr Lukashenka looks predictable in this list. However, there are some rather unexpected persons.

NTV correspondent Georgy Grivenny reports from Minsk.

Signature collector Alyaksandr says it’s like selling goods. Clients should be drummed up.

Signature collector: “Signature collecting for candidate Andrei Sannikov! Would you like to sign?”

Then the candidate must be presented to a voter in a right way. It is only permitted to tell about the candidate but not to agitate for him during signature collecting campaign.

– Is he a deputy minister? So, he is corrupted…

– No, he resigned in 1996 pretesting against the referendum results.

– So he is for the whites or for the reds?

– Well, you classify people like that?

Andrei Sannikov, the leader of European Belarus civil campaign: “100,000 signatures is too much taking into account the current situation in Belarus. Moreover, too little time is given. But I am sure my team is able to collect the necessary number.”

Besides Alyaksandr Lukashenka running for a fourth term, the list of potential candidates contains some persons one might expected as presidential aspirants and obviously passing figures. Besides opposition leaders Sannikov and Nyaklyaeu, there are six politicians of the second opposition wave, as well as a legal counsel, an unemployed, a director of a private enterprise, a reprehensive of the association of small and medium-sized business, a pensioner, a nuclear physicist, and a worker at the vegetable processing plant. As experts suppose, only four or five persons have real chances to become candidates.

A local dweller: “I will sign in favour of all 15 people! I won’t only sign for Lukashenka and Gaidukevich. Let the rest run in the election!”