“Nezavisimaya Gazeta”: Lukashenka at risk of remaining unrecognized president
- 6.12.2010, 10:36
Russian mass media criticize the so-called “All-Belarus People’s Congress” organized by the dictator.
The Fourth All-Belarus People’s Congress starts its work in Minsk today. According to the Belarusian public and experts, it is to become the main event in the electoral campaign of the incumbent president Alyaksandr Lukashenka, “Nezavisimaya gazeta” writes.
2,500 people will gather for the All-Belarus People’s Congress. Alyaksandr Lukashenka is to address the congress. In accordance with traditions of the Soviet Union, he will summarize how the previous five-year plan has been accomplished, and give an account of the vision of the next one. Speakers will express their approval of the policy chosen 16 years ago, and will propose not to it as the only right one. The assembly is to last for 2 days, and finally it will approve the programme offered by the current head of the state, after a while the programme will be printed as a red book, where the main words would be “Approved by the Fourth All-Belarus People’s Congress”.
According to Lukashenka’s political consultants, this performance which takes place once in 5 years, before the presidential election, shows that the policy of the incumbent president is supported by all groups of the society, and all of them believe that he should remain in power. “Among those who are to take the most important decisions at the forum are 273 workers, 250 farmers, 209 engineers, 505 representatives of the social and cultural sector, 607 heads of companies and organizations, students, businessmen, military, pensioners, others,” the official informational agency BELTA writes.
At the same time, this meeting does not have a status of an event which is a part of the election campaign of the candidate for presidency Lukashenka, and its budget by far exceeds the sums allocated to candidates for their agitation campaign. Delegates are to come to the capital at the expense of the state; their stay is to be covered as well. Besides, everyone is to be given a so-called gift set, where not only pens, notebooks and agitation materials, “Luch” watch with special engraving and a microwave oven manufactured by a Minsk plant “Gorizont” are to be put in it. Remarkably, holding such events before the presidential election, Lukashenka states: unlike his opponents who are thirsting for power, he is not going to carry out an active agitation campaign. He works as a president, quietly and modestly, and his great (unlike his opponents’) deeds are to speak volumes instead of him.
The super-task of the Belarusian authorities for this election is to keep external characteristics of democracy while in fact it is absent. Otherwise Lukashenka is at risk of remaining an unrecognized present.