People’s Outrage To Swipe Off Yarmoshyna And Lukashenka

Putting the issue on prolongation of Lukashenka’s authorizations on a referendum will cause unpredictable consequences for the authorities.

This is the way the leader of the Belarusian opposition, former presidential candidate and former political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich commented upon Lidziya Yarmoshyna’s statement on possible holding of a referendum on the issue on prolongation of Lukashenka’s authorizations:

- I don’t recognize Mrs.Yarmoshyna as a real Chairperson of a normal Central Elections Commission. I don’t recognize this institution as a real elections commission, the same way I don’t recognize the Belarusian “elections” as real elections either.

This is the way I feel about Mrs.Yarmoshyna. I think that the board of the Liberal Democratic Party decided to please her out of gratitude for the received places in the “chamber of representatives” and the “council of republic”, so they came up with such an offer. This could also probably be a trial baloon.

I don’t believe this issue will be put on a referendum, as Belarus today remains in a very complicated economic situation and the social tension keeps growing. Politicizing the society at a time like this, let alone promoting an idea of the prolongation of the presidential terms of an obviously non-popular ruler, whom most Belarusians simply hate by now – this seems insane.

They will not do that. However, if they do, the consequences there are unpredictable. Such politicization may cause very broad public manifestations of outrage with an ending the authorities are aware of.

We remind, the Liberal Democratic Party suggested holding a referendum on changing the Constitution alongside with the next “local elections” in 2018.

The party suggests switching to the proportionally-majority voting system, and to prolong the terms of authorizations of the members of the “council of republic”, the “deputies” of the “chamber of representatives”, and the “deputies” of the “local councils” from four to five years, and the president’s – from five to seven years.

The CEC Chairperson Lidziya Yarmoshyna stated that the referendum on prolongation of the terms of authorizations of the president and the “deputies” of the “chamber of representatives” might happen “if the state leader wants so”.