MASEHROVA QUITS PRESIDENTIAL RACE

2001-07-05

Alex Znatkevich, site editor

Natalya Masherova, daughter of Belarus' popular Soviet-era governor Pyotr Masherov, is withdrawing from the presidential race.

Ms. Masherova, a member of the National Assembly House of Representatives, had filed a request for annulling the registration of her signature-collection group, Valery Yurevich, press secretary of the central election commission, told Radio Liberty on July 4. Mr. Yurevich said Ms. Masherova did not give any reason for her decision. She has not been available for comment and is reportedly outside Belarus until July 10.

The central election commission is to consider Ms. Masherova's request on July 5.

The rumors predicting Ms. Masherova's withdrawal emerged in the Belarusian National Assembly on June 29. Ms. Masherova then told BelaPAN she could say "neither yes nor no" to these rumors. "The situation is more complicated than you think," she said.

Ms. Masherova's decision was most likely prompted by the pressure from the executive authorities. The Belarusian ruler, Aleksandr Lukashenko, called her presidential bid a "stab in the back". Recent opinion polls have shown her popularity grow. When asked to evaluate a list of potential presidential candidates, 17 percent of the Belarusians polled in June said they would vote for Ms. Masherova, according to Minsk's Independent Institute for Socioeconomic and Political Studies. Ms. Masherova was not even on the list in a similar poll in April, when she had not yet announced her presidential ambitions.

The main factor in her popularity is certainly her name - according to last year's BelaPAN poll in Minsk, her father came second on the list of the most outstanding Belarusians of all times, following Renaissance-era printer and educator Francisak Skaryna and leaving others (including Mr. Lukashenko) well behind.

Now we are unlikely to find out whether Ms. Masherova, whose political views are close to those of Mr. Lukashenko, could become a real force in the election. But her quitting the race is another signal that Mr. Lukashenko is planning the elections on a "tough" scenario. Almost none of the hundreds of party activists have been included in the election commissions. We can also expect that the central election commission will deny registration to all more or less strong candidates (see analysis). A recent presidential decree №20, which requires close relatives of the candidates (including grandchildren, grandparent and siblings) to declare income and property, can come handy here. A mistake in a brother's income declaration can cost a candidate his (Ms. Masherova was the only woman among 22 bidders) registration.

When Ms. Masherova, whose electorate partly overlaps with Mr. Lukashenko's, announced her bid, some analysts said it was all part of a tricky plan. The two were supposedly to enter the second round of the elections to imitate struggle. But her quits hint at another scenario, which is more simple and more natural for the current head of state. Mr. Lukashenko seems to prepapre by using his control of the election commissions to announce his victory in the first round.