section_path: Selection process/Nomination and election
section_name: Nomination and election
paragraph_text: Nomination and election
  
  Elections for president occur every five years by a national vote. To be registered as a candidate for the presidency the prospective candidate is first required to have an initiative group of citizens containing no fewer than 100 persons. The initiative group must be registered with the Central Elections Commission no later than 85 days before the election. If successfully registered, the nominated candidate is tasked with collecting at least 100,000 valid signatures from eligible voters. If the Central Elections Commissions find that this threshold has been reached, the candidate is officially certified to run for the presidency.
  
  In the voting, the secret ballots are collected directly from eligible voters. The election is valid only if more than 50 % of registered voters cast a ballot. During the first round of voting, if a candidate earns fifty percent plus one of the votes, they are declared the President-elect. If no one has achieved that number during the first round, then a run-off election will occur between two candidates who won the most votes. The person who wins the most votes in the run-off is declared the president-elect.
  
  In the event the office is vacant, the election to replace the president must occur between thirty and seventy days after the vacancy occurred. During normal election cycles, the elections must occur before the last two months of the current president. In either situation, the government body that calls for elections is the House of Representatives. The last round of presidential elections occurred in 2025. President Lukashenko, when addressing the press in February 2007, stated his health will determine if he will run in 2011 or step down at that time.