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United Civic Party will not act on selection of single opposition candidate so far, leader says

The United Civic Party (UCP) has no plans so far to take any special efforts toward the selection of a single opposition candidate in the 2015 presidential election, leader Anatol Lyabedzka told reporters in Minsk on December 27, BelaPAN said.

"We will be working in accordance with our strategy and our plan," the politician said, adding that the party continued calling for Alyaksandr Lukashenka's political opponents to support a single candidate in the election.

However, Mr. Lyabedzka said that he liked the 2010 presidential campaign, which involved many opposition candidates. "It was a brighter and more energetic campaign than the previous two, which featured a single [opposition] candidate. The authorities made a mistake by allowing the voter to have a very wide choice. If one did not like one candidate, there were seven or eight more to choose from," he said.

Mr. Lyabedzka predicted that the authorities would not make the same mistake next time and would try to shorten the list of Mr. Lukashenka's presidential rivals as much as possible. "This makes us speak about the need to select a single candidate," he said.

The UCP suggests selecting a single opposition candidate through a series of primaries, he said.

"We have two possibilities: either we change the rules of holding a presidential campaign, which we cannot do, or we significantly increase the number of people involved in the political process. That we can do through primaries, which motivates people to get involved in political life," Mr. Lyabedzka said.