Anatol Lyabedzka: “Belarus’ status in PACE can be changed only after election”

Head of the Russian delegation to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said PACE could consider the question on returning a special guest status to Belarus. But Anatol Lyabedzka, head of the United Civil Party, thinks one can say about status restoration only after the election campaign in Belarus.”

Belarus lost this status after the referendum 1996, when the Supreme Council was dismissed and the “house of representatives” was created. Are there political grounds of returning the official Minsk to the Parliamentary Assembly? Can this step help, as Kosachev thinks, the democratisation of Belarus? Anatol Lyabedzka, head of the United Civil Party, answers these questions of Radio Svaboda.

– Head of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, Konstantin Kosachev, said “more and more MPs begin to incline to a position, supported by Russia, who always stood against isolation of Belarus.” In this connection Kosachev said the PACE can raise a question on returning a special guest status to Belarus. In your view, how many members of the parliament can support this idea?

– Sentiments may change, but there are resolutions, adopted by Political Affairs Committee, Legal Affairs Committee, and the whole Parliamentary Assembly. All of them stated the same: a time to return a special guest status hasn’t come yet. It is put in the resolutions, which were adopted at least once a year. They express the position of MPs. The rest is temporal sentiments and emotions. I think everyone will look at these documents, the real situation before the voting, and make a categorical conclusion – “time hasn’t come yet.”

– What is your attitude towards the arguments, proposed by Mr Kosachev? He said isolation of the official Minsk leads to freezing of the problems with democracy in Belarus. But if invite them to the PACE, they would become democratic ...

– The facts prove the contrary. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has such an experience. In 2000 Seleznyov from Russia said that Belarusian deputies should learn democracy, they would become more democratic with ours. What is the result? What has changed in the Belarusian deputies, who attend OSCE sessions annually? Did they raise a question on amendments to the electoral code? Did they defend media, which had to print outside Belarus?

So the experience proves the contrary. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly gives a brilliant example, that there is no democratization, and deputies, who attend these sessions annually, remain the same as those, who stay in Belarus, for instance, as Sayrhei Kastsyan.

We can say about a special guest status restoration only after the election campaign in Belarus. Let Mr Kasachev come here and see how the election campaign will be held, how candidates will be registered, how many opposition representatives will be included into electoral commissions – then it will be possible to discuss this issue.