Lukashenko: a new stage in the arrangement of public sector begins
The President of Belarus has convened a meeting on draft laws on civil society, activities of political parties and other public associations. As was promised long ago, the session discusses the fulfilment of the Head of State’s instruction on the creation of legal foundations for party building and the development of civil society in our country.
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that two draft laws are being submitted for consideration: On Civil Society and On Amending Laws on the Activities of Political Parties and Other Public Associations.
“Both bills are very topical,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasised. “I want to say right away: considering this topic, we will be subjected to severe criticism both on the one hand and on the other. Our supporters will be criticising us, and rightly so, for the fact that we do not hold these events on time, launching the processes of party building in the country and, as a result, the creation of parties at a wrong time. The situation in the world is extremely tense, especially around us. At such times, any state begins to mobilise and concentrate around one or two figures. According to our Constitution, the President is such figure in our country. And here we began to deploy party building. There will be new parties. Naturally, new centres of power will be created. Of course, the society will be structured around these parties, people will be mobilised. That is, when it is necessary to unite, we seem to begin the process of some kind of separation. This is how our supporters will criticise us, and they will be right.”
On the other hand, the President noted, if we adopt these two laws, there will be criticism that we are not democratic enough and that we are creating some kind of special political system, hitherto unknown in the world, “In general, we will be criticised for insufficient radicalism. But I proceed from the fact that we at one time (before the adoption of the Constitution and this was reflected in the Constitution) promised our society that we would resolve these issues. Since we promised we must do it.”
The Head of State recalled that during the process of constitutional reform there was criticism from supporters of the authorities that it is necessary to abandon this because people are not ready, “It turned out that people are smarter than us. The Constitution was supported, we adopted it, and the constitutional process strengthened our society, and did not divide it. Therefore, if we promised, we must do it. I think that despite internal and external difficulties, we will calmly go through this stage.”
At the same time, the President drew attention to the fact that it is necessary to form the directions of party building and civil society proceeding from our modern realities, “There’s no need to invent anything, no need to run far ahead, because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We don’t know what the world will be like. In fact, the civil society has formed in our country. I have always said that the youth organisation represented by the Belarusian Republican Youth Union is the backbone of our civil society, we also have the most powerful trade unions, veterans and women’s organisations. As far as parties are concerned, they are looming on the horizon nowadays. We see their future. Therefore, there is no need to overcomplicate about registration. We must proceed from the realities of today. The process will be developing, we will be also improving party building and our civil society. That is, it is necessary not to take off from the ground. This is the most important thing for us today, so as not to step aside and not to make mistakes.”
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, in fact, this discussion is a continuation of an objective constitutional process, “In fact, a new stage in the arrangement of our public sector begins. When the post-Soviet republics easily abandoned the USSR experience and undertook social and political experiments, we were in no hurry to break something quickly, approaching all issues thoughtfully and slowly. Time has shown that we did the right thing. We managed to save both the trade unions and the Communist Party, against which everyone was fighting, and above all in the Russian Federation. However, I saw that this fight against the Communist Party in Russia was mainly based on the personal preferences of the first president of Russia. We were on good terms with him, and I was in complete control of the situation and understood that we did not need to go this way. Life has shown that our Communist Party has never been an enemy and opponent of the processes that we are conducting in Belarus. We have recreated the leading youth organisation – now it is the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, pioneers, the Belarusian Women’s Union, the Association of Veterans, etc. I repeat once again: these are the reliable pillars of our state, the capital that we inherited from the Soviet Union. We carefully preserved and increased it.”
