Republic

Alexander Lukashenko: to win elections is not the main objective of opposition

On March 6 president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko gave an interview to the program “Real Politics” with Gleb Pavlovskiy” (NTV channel). Well-known political scientist Gleb Pavlovskiy is an adviser to the chief of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, president of the Effective Policy Foundation. The interview focused on the peculiar features of the Belarusian model of government, strong social policy, socio-economic development of the country in the next five years, support of entrepreneurship, the Union State prospects, upcoming presidential elections and the activity of the so-called opposition. As Alexander Lukashenko has stressed, the main peculiar feature of the Belarusian model of development is high social security of citizens. “We have never neglected the needs of people. The main fact attesting to this is that 65 per cent of the budget is spent on social needs”, the president stressed. The head of state added: ‘I advocate a fair economic policy. We would not want to see a high extent of income inequality take place in Belarus. I do not mean we would not want to have many rich people. I would be happy if there were many well-off families. I mean that we would not want some people to make fortunes from the sales of state-owned property such as oil refineries, potash fertilizer and metallurgy productions”. Alexander Lukashenko has underlined he came to power from the opposition and today those, who once were with the president, are fighting against the government of the republic. “Opposition should mature and offer something constructive to the society rather than simply "scream": “Impose sanctions against Lukashenko. What economic sanctions can be imposed against Lukashenko? Against the country and the nation?” According to the Belarusian leader, to win the presidential elections is not the main goal of the opposition. “They do not believe they can beat Lukashenko. The Belarusian opposition sees politics as business. It is big money”. “There is no national and interconfessional dissension in Belarus today. Nobody is fighting. What is wrong about Belarus? It is just that Western countries are not happy with the policy Lukashenko has been pursuing. Lukashenko has ruined all the plans about new European order and favoured a union with Russia. These are the things which disntibuish the Belarusian model from that great democracy, which exists in Western countries”, the head of state added. As BelTA was informed in the presidential press service, the interview of the Belarusian leader will be broadcast in the next program “Real Politics” with Gleb Pavlovskiy”.