No single candidate planned. UCP supports Statkevich and Lyabedzka

On November 25, the United Civil Party held a political council. And it barely had time to finish it before the expected press conference at 14:30. Chairman of the party Anatoly Lyabedzka came to the journalists directly from the meeting-room.

"We are ready to be one of the initiators of the group to register and nominate Mikalai Statkevich. For us it is important and relevant to emphasize the absence of free and fair elections in Belarus, and that only solution of this problem gives a chance for change," he said solemnly.

But then he added that there shouldn't be much hope for registration of Mikalai Statkevich as a candidate. Therefore he himself, Anatoly Lyzebedzka, will also try to register. And not as a candidate of the United Civil Party, but, most likely, from the united Talaka. It means he will have support from the former communists of the Fair World, with whom negotiations on this matter are already underway and will be completed within a week, according to Anatoly Lyabedzka.

Anatoly Lyabedzka actually denies that there is an opportunity to somehow negotiate with the People's Referendum and BCD. Apparently, at the moment the parties have fundamentally different visions of the election campaign, and it is the most important thing.

"Today we can state that the greatest contradiction is that there are different scenarios that we and People's Referendum offer. They are not the same," said the leader of the UCP.

In addition, according to leaders of the United Civil Party, the Belarusian Popular Front, Tell the Truth, For Freedom, Belarusian Social Democratic Party Hramada and BCD do not have a candidate. Honorary chairman of the United Civil Party Stanislau Bahdankevich believes that in this situation the Congress for choosing a single candidate is not even really needed.

"Five organizations do not have their own candidate. Milinkevich refused to participate, so did the poet. It turns out that the Congress will only convene to consider the candidacy of Lyabedzka. Is a Congress really needed?" asks Bahdankevich.

However, neither Milinkevich nor Nyakliayeu formally refused to participate in elections next year.

UCP has been planning to create initiative groups to nominate candidates by the end of the year. It remains to be learned if Statkevich would like to be a candidate from UCP or Talaka. Wife of political prisoner, Maryna Adamovich, said that Mikalai agreed with the idea of becoming a single candidate, voiced by Uladzimir Nyaklyayeu in summer. He does not know about the idea of Lyabedzka and his colleagues. Also, Maryna Adamovich is not entirely convinced of the opposition's good intentions.

"It seems to me that everything from the beginning was placed upside down. So I'm neither looking for any logic in the statements, nor for intrigue. And I find it hard somehow to comment on them."

Statkevich will only be able to comment on the latest news from the opposition camp in a week when he reads about them in the independent press.