2024-01-04 15:49:14
All-Belarusian People’s Assembly
A new constitutional body will appear in Belarus in 2024, formally approved at the referendum last year. Instead of the previous periodic conventions, which had a pre-election character for Lukashenka, the current “convention” will become a whole political body that should determine the state’s policy. Moreover, according to the National Security Service Alexander Lukashenkowill create “the foundation of Belarusian national statehood”.
Lukashenka did not mention the traditions of Belarusian statehood during the time of the Polotsk Principality, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the BNR.
Speaking at the National Assembly in February 2021, Lukashenka assured that he does not plan to run for a new term. “It won’t be me! There will be another head of state,” he said. A meaningful phrase was also heard: “What role will the current president play after leaving power, time will tell.”
The “All-Belarusian People’s Assembly” will be transformed into almost the main state institution, to which a significant part of the powers from the president and the parliament should be transferred. Such changes are enshrined in the new Constitution. Analysts believe that Lukashenka, plausibly, planned for himself the position of chairman of the National Security Service.
Meetings of the National Assembly must be held at least once a year, its composition is limited to 1,200 delegates. The All-Belarusian People’s Assembly is a non-elected body, its delegates are appointed. Accordingly, it is expected that only people loyal to the regime will get there.
One voting day
February 25 “One voting day” will be held for the first time in Belarus. Members of the House of Representatives and local councils will be voted on. Pre-election campaigning is allowed from January 31 to February 24. Early voting will continue from February 20 to 24. Protocols from the commissions must be sent to the CEC no later than February 29.
The campaign takes place according to the new rules. For example, the authorities hide information about election commissions. 70 thousand people are involved in their work.
Among the potential candidates for deputies of the House of Representatives are mainly active officials or heads of state enterprises.
Representatives of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, organized by the Human Rights Center “Viasna” and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee since 2008, as well as its expert Pavel Sapelka emphasized that in connection with repressive risks, an expert mission will work, and not “classical” observation, which was carried out during previous campaigns.
Political commentator Valer Karbalevich believes that Lukashenka views the elections as a “military operation”. He is sure that the absolute majority, both among Lukashenka’s supporters and opponents, understands that in today’s conditions this is a complete imitation. Sapelka believes that it is difficult to call the current campaign even an “imitation”, it refers more to previous elections.
Elections to the Coordination Council
The Coordination Council is a political organization that emerged during the 2020 presidential elections. Its organizers Maxim Znaka and Maria Kalesnikova the authorities sent him to prison, began to persecute other participants, as a result of which the Kyrgyz Republic is now acting on emigration. The new composition of the Coordination Council will be elected for two years. It will have 120 people, 8 of whom are currently behind bars.
It was decided that all citizens of Belarus will be able to elect the delegates of the Coordination Council with the help of electronic voting, which will be held at the beginning of March. A separate Central Election Commission is expected to appear soon to conduct elections to the Coordination Council. The campaign will start in February 2024.
It is assumed that people in Belarus will be able to vote on a special platform by registering with a phone number, people outside the country with a document proving their identity. Voting will be somewhat reminiscent of how it was done in the “Voice” platform in 2020.
Elections will be held based on voter lists. The minimum number of candidates in the list is 10 people. A separate quota for women was also determined – 40% of seats, and there must be at least two women in each of the five candidates. 15% (18 people) is a quota for representatives of civil society organizations.
Each voter has 3 votes, a maximum of 3 lists can be chosen. The threshold is 3% of the total number of those who voted, and 750 votes for candidates from the self-nominated list.
80 years since the liberation of Belarus from the Nazis
July 3 the Belarusian state will celebrate the Day of Liberation from the Nazis. German troops were driven out by the Red Army in 1944. Over time, the holiday became extremely ideological, Lukashenka’s opponents were openly equated with “fascists and their aides”, as well as countries that impose economic sanctions against the Republic of Belarus.
The General Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Andrei Shved, is investigating the case of the “genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War”, declaring new “facts”. The first trials of deceased participants in the occupation of Belarus during the Second World War are also expected.
There are only a few real veterans who went through World War II, and they are very old, so they can’t go to parades.
In connection with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus, as before on this holiday, an amnesty may take place. Earlier, the authorities made it clear that political prisoners should not count on it.
30 years of Lukashenka in power
July 20. In 1994, the 39-year-old deputy, who made a name for himself on the corruption report, ascended to the political Olympus. On July 20 of that year, Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in to the Constitution as the first president of the independent Republic of Belarus. He remains the only one in this position. All his subsequent elections were not recognized as honest and fair by the opposition and the international community.
In 2020, Lukashenko experienced the largest protests against his rule. As a result of large-scale repressions, thousands went through prisons, and tens of thousands were forced to leave the country.
The Olympic Games and the status of Belarusians at them
July 26 – August 11. The XXXIII Olympic Games will be held in the capital of France, Paris. At these Games, for the first time in history, Belarus can perform without a flag and an anthem: for the complicity of the leadership of Belarus in Russia’s war against Ukraine, sanctions were imposed on Minsk. The International Olympic Committee later allowed the athletes to compete in a neutral status, but left the final decision to the sports federations, and many of them banned Belarusian athletes from all participation in the competition.
It should be noted that at the Youth Olympic Games, which will be hosted by South Korea in February, Belarusians will not even be in neutral status – no one has passed the qualifying competitions.
Tsikhanovskaya and the conference “New Belarus”
August. Democratic forces of Belarus will organize the second conference “New Belarus”. Dates and location are yet to be announced.
In 2023, the first such conference was held in Warsaw, Poland. Arranged her office Svetlana Tikhonovskaya, Joint Transitional Cabinet and Coordinating Council. At the conference, the joint achievements and failures of the democratic forces in recent times, as well as further plans and vision of the future of Belarus were openly discussed.
Then, 158 representatives of the third sector and 58 experts spoke at the conference. Invitations to participate were sent to 152 representatives of political structures, as well as 7 former political prisoners and family members of political prisoners.
Among the topics that are expected to be discussed at this year’s forum are the implementation of the New Belarus passport project and the efforts of the Belarusian democratic community and international organizations and countries to free Belarusian political prisoners, of whom there are currently about 1,500 in prisons.
“Slavic Bazaar” and Viva Braslav
July. A few years ago, the festival in Vitebsk attracted musicians from different parts of the world, Italian and Spanish stars performed at it. Now political events contributed to the fact that the headline artists at the festival are from Russia.
In terms of popularity, the Vitebsk festival can surpass the large Viva Braslav festival. But there is different music, mostly electronic. In Molodechno, the song and poetry festival, which has been held since 1993, was canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus, but then it continued the tradition.
Back in 2021, the “Mighty God” church music festival, which had been held every two years in Mogilev since 1993, was canceled without explanation. 23 festivals took place.
Budslav festival
July. The festival, which has been held in Budslav since 1992, is famous for the fact that pilgrims from different cities of Belarus come on foot to take part in it. In 2018, UNESCO included the Budslav festival in the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
The church in Budslav is a late baroque monument, its architecture is recognized as unique in the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The icon of the Budslav Mother of God is one of the most important Catholic shrines, she is revered as the protector of all Belarusian Catholics.
A break in pilgrimages, including to the main sanctuary of Belarus, in Budslav, happened in 2020 – due to the coronavirus. Back then, only a few small private pilgrims set off on foot, those who were willing organized their own route. In 2021, when the roof of the Budslav shrine burned down, the pilgrims still did not return to their former strength, they went in an individual format, there were not many of them. Already in 2022, they left from different cities, as before. And in 2023, the number of festival participants has significantly decreased.
Jerzy Gedroytsia Award
November. The Jerzy Gedroyts Prize is the largest independent literary prize in Belarus, which has been awarded since 2012. They became its laureates in different seasons Vladimir Nyaklyaev, Viktor Kazko, Igor Babkov, Eva Vezhnavets.
In 2022, the Svaboda journalist won the competition Siarhei Ablameyka with the book “Unknown Minsk. The story of the disappearance. Book one.”
Now, due to the repeatedly mentioned political reasons, the awarding ceremony takes place abroad (in 2023 in Gdańsk, Poland). The list of nominees now includes mainly Belarusian emigrants.
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