After the talks Alexander Lukashenko and the editor-in-chief of independent newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” Iosif Shareditem politicized the public began rapidly to discuss the idea of a round table and the search for national accord.
Meanwhile, we must pay attention to the facts. First, we are talking about the fact that the head of state received 13 February a private individual and not a delegate representing a certain strength. Second, the meeting was held tete-a-tete, on its results we know only from the words of Seredich.
Moreover, on 14 February at the conference “Media in Belarus: challenges and chances” in Minsk, the chief editor of “Narodnaya Volya” has admitted that because the meeting was not conducted the Protocol, he Seredich have yet to write down their suggestions for Lukashenka to make some decisions.
The atmosphere of the meeting showed a video of old friends at work in the Supreme Council of XII convocation Lukashenko and Seredich friendly hug. Some information about the content of the conversation can be found in the editor’s column which was printed the next day “Narodnaya Volya”.
In the text Seredich there are some things on which you should focus your attention.
First, the word “President” is written six times with a capital letter. According to established practice in Belarus, write the state media, and non-state — with a lowercase. At the beginning of Lukashenko’s presidency was an attempt to convince independent media to share with the press service of the head of state and state-run media shared vision of orfogramm but failed.
that from the editorial policy could be conscious, as is the case with the advertising and could be accidental, if we are talking about publishing a text agreed with the press service of the President, or if the editor took my column as an open letter to the head of state and therefore thought it necessary to refer to it with capital letters.
Second, Syaredzich says the impression that Lukashenka is allegedly “wants to send the country into other hands… peaceful, democratic, civilized, and not through the barricades and riots”. It is clear that we are talking about subjective impression, and not on the recognition of the head of state.
However, what caused these experiences? And if this is true, not least, who wants to send the country Lukashenko. If you really “democratic”, we are talking about the presidential election of 2020, which might be a real alternative to unchallenged since 1994, the ruler of Belarus. However, it is not known where this alternative will appear, but that is another question.
“The talk”. The questions were, the answers aren’t heard
Maybe the head of state and in the “Great conversation with the President,” February 3, mouth Seredich deliberately made hints that indeed under certain conditions, agree to cede to the chair? If so, it is unlikely that such hints to the opposition, because by all objective indicators, it is not a subject that has the power to achieve power.
Third, while obscure format of the proposed procedure exit on national reconciliation — a goal about which he writes Seredich. In this case, we observe Russia as a threat is a figure both in his column and in a number of other opinion leaders, speakers with a similar program.
In the early 90s opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich was able to sit at a round table in the Moscow House of writers of the authorities and the opposition under the slogan of unity in the name of national salvation, but the unity turned into a Declaration — ahead was the first presidential election, two or three in one chair to sit was impossible.
Syaredzich says: “I don’t get bogged down in detail, he sketched a diagram on how, in my opinion, it is possible to organize the work of the “National round table”. Further, the chief editor of “Narodnaya Volya” recalls the experience of Poland and may give the impression that we are talking about the experience of the round table, for which the authorities of the NDP in 1989, was able to negotiate with the independent trade Union “Solidarity” about a political reform, Poland’s transition to democracy and a market economy.
Will Lukashenka by Jaruzelski?
But in Belarus there is no such entity, any of the first Secretary of the PZPR Wojciech Jaruzelski was the trade Union “Solidarity”. Lukashenka has no need to engage in dialogue, to sit at the round table with the opposition, since it can neither force the President to accept her partner or herself to speak with one voice and one agenda, and also because it is now no longer relies on the support of the masses.
But if a miracle happened and these two subjects engaged in a dialogue, on the main issue of continuity of power — the opposition cannot guarantee fulfillment of agreements.
The latter is possible when changing the framework conditions in the Belarusian political field. And at the end of the 90s and the presidential elections of 2010, and now Lukashenko cautiously raises the question of the reform of the political system, but did not dare to take the next step.
Changing in the 1996 Constitution, the President has significantly shifted the balance of power in the country in their favor. This was dictated by the logic of struggle for power. If we assume that Lukashenko is studying the escape routes, then it is more profitable that the new President was not omnipotent. We believe only a balanced system of separation of powers, to protect the rights of ordinary citizens. Otherwise, a new strong President can suddenly review warranty for the previous head of state and members of his family.
However, the resumption of balance of power is in our case the reduced powers of the President that the Belarusian leader to go as hard as the characters in Tolkien to abandon the one ring. The fiction for the solution of this problem needed the participation is absolutely not ambitious hobbits. In our case, this can be extended in time through the steps of political reform, with a gradual transition of power to the government, Parliament and the courts.
If so, it is no accident Seredich asks the President “to assist to the heads of Belarus — let them be a hundred, two hundred, got together with representatives of the authorities in one round or square table and pomogali on the issue of what today are worried about everyone who lives in Belarus”.
Please note that the word “opposition” was missing in the report Seredich, to put at the table alone or together with taking his master’s office offer no political opponents, and intellectuals who will tell you the way out.
Thus, the political opposition, it makes no sense to argue, who of them will invite for a round table — the method of selection will be different.
