Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has announced that the country’s next presidential election will be held in 2020, but the parliamentary elections will be held in 2019.
Lukashenka made the announcement on April 19 during his annual address to the nation and the parliament.
His announcement comes amid calls from some politicians to keep the dates of the presidential and parliamentary elections separate so that the election campaign periods do not overlap.
According to Lidziya Yarmoshyna, the head of Belarus’s Central Election Commission, current legislation stipulates that the next presidential election must be held no later than August 30, 2020 and that the next general election must be no later than September 6, 2020.
“In the Belarusian legislation there is only the term ‘no later than.’ That is, it is impossible to hold elections later than these dates. But you can do it before this date,” Yarmoshyna told RFE/RL in January, noting that there was nothing in the legislation stating how much earlier the elections can be held.
