Milinkevich wins presidential nomination vote in Vitebsk region :: Charter'97 :: News

Aleksandr Milinkevich, a pro-democracy activist without party affiliation, and Sergei Kalyakin, leader of Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC), were proposed for the opposition`s single presidential candidacy at a regional conference of opposition forces held in a forest outside Vitebsk on May 15.

The two gained more than half of the votes. Mr. Milinkevich was supported by 68 of the 105 delegates and Mr. Kalyakin by 53 delegates, Vintsuk Vyachorka, leader of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), told BelaPAN.

United Civic Party leader Anatoly Lebedko followed with 46 votes, and Stanislav Shushkevich, leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada, received 27 votes.

Nikolai Busnyuk of the UCP gained 21 votes, Valery Artishevsky, and Valery Gritsuk, who also have expressed plans to run for president, received 9 votes each.

Mr. Vyachorka said that the event was held in the presence of police and secret services officers, who briefly detained Mikhail Bolotovich, a BPF activist, for passing out the newspaper Polatski Krai.

Nomination conferences have been held earlier in all regions and the city of Minsk. Mr. Milinkevich captured more than half of the votes in the Brest, Gomel, Grodno and Mogilyov regions and the city of Minsk; Mr. Lebedko in the Brest and Minsk regions and the city of Minsk, Dr. Shushkevich in the Minsk and Grodno regions and the city of Minsk, and Mr. Kalyakin in the Brest and Minsk regions and city of Minsk.

The opposition presidential hopefuls plan to meet later this week.