Belarus is the next country to decide on their Eurovision act through a national final, with the selection taking place last night. After an entertaining series of auditions, where some acts were cut off even before finishing their entries, a total of eleven acts (which turned into 10) were selected to perform live in the final.
It’s been a bit of a controversial lead up to the competition, as upon the selection it became known that a Russian language version of Alekseev’s entry had been performed in public prior to the 1st of September 2017, and as we know, the Eurovision rules states that the songs cannot be performed before this date. With this news, seven of the other ten finalists wrote an open letter to the Belarusian broadcaster stating they would withdraw if Alekseev was allowed to perform in the national selection, also alleging that the competition has been rigged for Alekseev to win. One of the eleven originally selected acts, Sofi Lapina officially withdrew in mid January.
After all this, the show went on, featuring ten acts including Alekseev. Here are the competitors:
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Adagio – Tj I ja
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Alekseev – Forever
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Shuma – Chmarki
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NAPOLI – Chasing Rushes
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Anastasiya Malashkevich – World on Fire
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Gunesh – I Won’t Cry
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Radiovolna – Subway Lines
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Alen Hit – I Don’t Care
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Lexy Weaver – Ain’t You
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Kirill Good – Déjà vu
The voting consisted of both jury and televote, so let’s go through the votes!
We’ll start with the jury voting, and unsurprisingly, the favourite going into the national final Alekseev took out the top Jury points. Coming in second with the jury was Radiovolna with their song Subway Lines. In third was Gunesh with the song I Won’t Cry.
The televoting was make or break for some acts, but for fan favourite Alekseev, there were no worries as he scored the top votes in the televote as well. Second favourite with the audiences was Shuma, and then Kirill Good.
With the scores combined, Alekseev was the winner with the highest amount of points. Coming in second was Gunesh with the song I Won’t Cry, and in third was Shuma with Chmarki.
Watch the winning performance below:
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