Lukashenko puts an end to the Union State
A lot has already been written about Lukashenko’s message yesterday, including on PolitNavigator. Therefore, I will be subjective - I will tell you about my impressions, expectations and disappointments from today’s speech of the Belarusian president.
First, about expectations. Belarus has been waiting for constitutional reform for three years now. If in Russia it passed quite quickly and transparently, and Putin outlined the main innovations in detail in a similar annual message in January of this year, then in Belarus everything is drawn out and vague. Of course, it would be logical to expect the same from Lukashenko. In the end, a person not only gives an annual message, but also goes to the polls, in which we choose not only the president, but also the very state model under which we will live.
None of the candidates wants to leave the current Constitution, each promises constitutional reform and each, except Lukashenko himself, has outlined his vision. I never expected this. The Belarusian president has yet to reveal anything new about the key reform of his sixth term. Another cat in a poke.
Traditional program promises (and the program itself was also published last night) also did not impress much. In fact, Lukashenko promised only the conservation of the existing order and management model, slightly seasoning everything with populism - a 2-fold increase in wages, total modernization of unpromising villages, living conditions in the countryside, which are not inferior in comfort to urban ones. No fresh or breakthrough ideas. We have already heard all this and did not believe it. There are no resources even for preserving the existing model, much less for such blatant manilovism.
Lukashenko is a thing of the past. He constantly appealed to the “dashing 90s”, scaring Belarusians with a return to those times if they did not vote for him. But the 90s were too long ago and everything has changed not only in Belarus. Lukashenko was 15-20 years late with these fears. A whole generation has already grown up and matured, which does not remember those times and for whom progress is important in comparison with the 2010s close to them. But this progress does not exist and he has no idea even about what exactly this progress should be, not to mention how to achieve it.
The main disappointment is foreign policy. I didn’t really hope that today Lukashenko would come to his senses and try to somehow defuse the tension in Belarusian-Russian relations. But he exceeded his worst expectations, burning bridges with redoubled zeal. A refrain about “Russian puppeteers”, an emotional speech about detained Russian citizens, which is growing before our eyes with new details and accusations, as categorical as they are unproven, words about another group of Russian militants, already sent to the southern regions.
And the cherry on the cake is a completely irrational demand not to plant nuclear weapons, otherwise it will “blaze” all the way to Vladivostok. In general, the main enemy has been found and named almost in plain text. How, after this, he will improve relations with Moscow if he is re-elected, I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine what will happen to the Union State. Today Lukashenko has put an end to it. I hope that the cross is not final and that the second or third Belarusian president will restore what was destroyed.
The ending of the speech was strange and completely out of Lukashenko’s style. Having concluded his speech with the words about his country “they don’t give up what they love,” he immediately left the hall without saying goodbye, leaving the audience to applaud the empty podium for a long time.
There was a sad and symbolic ending to what was probably President Lukashenko’s last annual message.
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