BPF Party: Lukashenka’s “consultative councils” are semblance. We demand free elections
- 11.02.2009, 13:43
Leaders of the Belarusian Popular Front Party announced the demands, they are going to put forward to the authorities on March 25.
A press conference focusing on the theme of celebration of Freedom Day on March 25 has been held today by Lyavon Barshcheuski, BPF leader, and deputy heads Viktar Ivashkevich and Vintsuk Vyachorka.
Lyavon Barshcheuski harshly criticised participation of some opposition figures in the so called public consultative councils, created under Lukashenka’s Administration. The BPF Party thinks the opposition shouldn’t take part in this “semblance of a dialog”. According to Barshcheuski, it is necessary to make authorities have real negotiations with the democratic forces, and a main issue of the talks should become free and democratic elections.
“The council under the head of Lukashenka’s Administration has no more rights than ordinary citizens have. If speaking about issues to discuss, they are, in the first place, transferring to democratic system of government. It is possible to achieve through elections. Creation of conditions for free elections is the only question that should be discussed by the authorities and the opposition. The same happened in Poland in 1988 at a round table of Solidarity movement and Jaruzelski’s regime. The rest things, including these “councils”, are just a shield.
Viktar Ivashkevich, BPF deputy head, said the Belarusian authorities should realize that the democratic forces of Belarus are supported by hundreds of thousands of people who want changes in the country. According to the politician, questions, acute for the Belarusian society, should be raised at a rally on March 25. In this connection the BPF Party has defines demands to the authorities. Besides questions of independence and democracy, demands of social protection of people will also be made at the protest demonstration. For example, for example, indexation of salaries and pensions in accordance to price growth, compensations to laid-off employees equal to 6-month payment.
Viktar Ivashkevich also named proposals on primary protective measures of Belarusians from social consequences of the crisis. The BPF Party also offered to transfer means of Lukashenka’s closed fund to the state budget.
In view of Ivashkevich, the president’s fund is “non-transparent, uncontrolled, but at the same time it is known it contains significant financial resources”. At the same time, the politician stressed, Belarus seeks for loans abroad, which are “spent on unknown purposes”.
The party also demands that the state should stop sponsoring of the ideological vertical and the Belarusian Republican Union of Youth (BRSM). The BPF Party insists on freezing of state financing of construction and support of “unprofitable entities that are not socially important” (ice arenas, Stalin Line, agricultural town, etc).
Along with this, the party offers to do what, according to Ivashkevich, has been already done in European countries and in the US – to cut staff of controlling and law enforcement agencies and decrease huge salaries of heads of state-run enterprises and institutions. “It contradicts the logic, when a director of an enterprise, which is backed from the budget and is unprofitable in real fact, gets salary of 8-10 mln rubles, while jobs are being cut and wages of employees are being reduced,” Ivashkevich says.
The BPF Party notes that Belarus can’t preserve worthy living standard and save the economy without attracting of western investments and joining European development programmes. “Liberalization of economy and cooperation with Europe are impossible without democratization of political life in Belarus. The current authorities demonstrate their inability to carry out democratic reforms,” Ivashkevich said.
Vintsuk Vyachorka, deputy head of the BPF Party, said that on March 25, which is a real Day of Independence of Belarus, one can’t but pat attention to the recent military agreements, Lukashenka signed with Moscow – on Belarusian-Russian joint air defense system and on creation of CSTO collective rapid-response forces. According to the politician, participation of Belarus is military unions is a question of political choice. NATO unites democratic countries, while the CSTO is a union of dictatorships, Vyachorka noted. According to him, a question of unacceptability of drawing Belarus into military and political ventures of Russia will become one of the main demands of participants of the demonstration on March 25.