BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/02/2007

Website Promotes Belarusian President As Candidate For Russian President

Aleksei Kanurin, an activist of Russia's ultra-right Movement Against Illegal Immigration, has recently inaugurated a campaign called "Lukashenka-2008" to propose Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka as a candidate for Russia's 2008 presidential election and launched a special website lukashenko2008.ru to promote this idea, Russian and Belarusian media reported on February 27. Kanurin said in an interview published on the website that Lukashenka has not been consulted about the campaign. "We do not need [such a consultation], our task is to create the situation in which people, including Alyaksandr Ryhoravich [Lukashenka], will have a choice," Kanurin added. Asked how Lukashenka, who does not have Russian citizenship, could be allowed to run in the 2008 presidential election in Russia, Kanurin said it is a "technical issue." "Representatives of this movement have not yet contacted the president's press office to talk about their initiative or their priorities and goals. That is why I personally do not have a firm opinion about this initiative," Lukashenka's spokesman, Pavel Lohki, told Belapan on February 27. JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2007/02/3-CEE/cee-280207.asp

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