‘The period of dictatorship is coming to its end; next year we are shifting to democracy,’ the head of state has said today during his meeting with Lidziya Yarmoshyna, Chair to the Central Elelection Commission.
The head of state has endorsed a proposal to hold local elections on March 23, 2014. Moreover, the next presidential run is to start in 2015; in 2016 the Belarusian will vote for MPs.
‘We should take this stage of our state’s development seriously. The case is that the situation is complicated and our so-called alternative politicians (I do not want to offend their patrons from abroad) bet bottom dollar on this period. They expect that the local elections will mark some start, a kind of development, and this so-called democracy will come to its boil during the presidential election and the parliamentary elections will crown it all’, he said.
Lukashenka stressed that he wanted the elections to demonstrate genuine democracy but failed to specify what he meant by. He only added that people should opt for the person who will rule the nation and the state.
According to the President, the current head of the Central Election Commission will take care of the organization and the holding of the forthcoming political campaigns the way she had done in the past.
Lidziya Yarmoshyna has been Chairwoman of the CEC since 1996. On 10 April 2006, following the 2006 presidential election in Belarus, she was placed on a list of over 40 members of the Belarusian government banned from entering the European Union and the United States for allegedly participating in the manipulation of the results of the presidential election.
The top official is notorious for her rude remarks, e.g. after the post-election protest action she harshly criticised Belarusian women: ‘You’d better stay at home and cook borshch! Is there nothing better for you but to hang around the squares? This would never come to my mind. It is a shame for a woman to take part in such actions’.
