Lukashenko: Belarusian People’s Congress should not interfere with others’ work or dominate any bodies of power

The President of Belarus, Chairman of the Belarusian People's Congress Aleksandr Lukashenko, has taken part in a meeting of the Presidium of the Belarusian People's Congress today

photo: www.president.gov.by

Today’s sitting has become the first meeting of the Presidium of the supreme constitutional representative body of people’s power.

Before starting the discussion of the issues on the agenda, Aleksandr Lukashenko shared some views about the Belarusian People’s Congress with the participants of the meeting, “I decided to hold a meeting of the Presidium in a broad format today, because we need to resolve the main issue. Actually, it is already stipulated in the Constitution, so we all need to understand that the Belarusian People's Congress should not interfere with anyone's work. It should not also dominate other bodies of power, since we will thus create problems for ourselves.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed, “As regards the proposals that have been submitted to me over the past six months — dealing with the structure of our Presidium and on interaction with the delegates, I have not made a decision on them without consulting you. Most importantly, we (I mean the Belarusian People’s Congress and the Presidium) in no case interfere with any body of power and we do not pressure them. Everyone is engaged into their own affairs. This practice is already decades-long in our country, and everyone known this. Moreover, we should not allow an approach when our representative body of the Belarusian People’s Congress is viewed as something supreme able to do anything in the country. The position of the Belarusian People’s Congress is determined by the Constitution. Well, the Constitution outlines general provisions, requirements, and functional responsibilities of the Belarusian People’s Congress, but it sometimes happens the other way around in details, in the specific application. If it is determined that the Belarusian People’s Congress makes decisions on the issues of national security, war, peace, and so on, then these are exclusively its powers.”

The Head of State added that the Belarusian People’s Congress should not get involved into minor issues, “This does not mean that our meetings will be held four times a year (like the Central Committee’s plenums), and that we will discuss certain issues there and assert that we are working hard. According to the Constitution, the Belarusian People’s Congress should deal exclusively with its own issues, and this should be the basis for the structure and the relationship of the Presidium and the Chairman of the Presidium with the Belarusian People’s Congress delegates.”