On May 25 Belarus’ president Aleksandr Lukashenko announced that the country’s current government will step down before the August presidential election. The president stressed that appointing a new government ahead of the election is the country’s tradition, so that “people could see who we’ll be working with”. A quick search shows, however, that no such tradition ever existed and it’s the first time in 26 years Lukashenko reshuffles his cabinet right before the elections. So why now?

Yesterday morning Belarus’ president Aleksandr Lukashenko visited Minsk Tractor Plant, one of the remaining Soviet giant factories the preservation of which Lukashenko considers one of the main achievements of his 26-year rule. After a routine inspection, the president came out to the crowd of journalists for a brief Q&A session. In his speech he directly attacked three of his opponents in the upcoming presidential election – Tikhanovski, Babariko, and Tsepkalo – accusing them of causing disturbances, being on Russia’s payroll, and threatening that he has plenty of dirt on them.

Today Belarus’ Central Election Commission headed by its eternal chairwoman Lidia Yermoshina (she’s been in office since 1996) has completed the reviewing of the potential candidates’ initiative groups. This is the preliminary stage of the election campaign. The initiative groups will later be responsible for collecting 100 thousand signatures so that their respective candidates could make it to the ballot. Of the total of 54 applications, the Commission has approved 15. The basis for rejection in the absolute majority of cases was the candidates’ failure to prove that their initiative groups have at least 100 members. Some potential candidates were also born outside Belarus which disqualifies them from running straightaway.