“Sasha will stay with us” - Lukashenko is not going to leave power
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is not going to leave power for at least a year and a half.
He stated this in an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel, commenting on the tasks of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, scheduled for mid-February, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Amendments to the constitution, perhaps, if the delegates are ready for this, will be outlined. And they will be introduced exclusively by referendum. I think that within a year we will be able to develop a draft of a new constitution. By the end of next year, the draft of the new constitution will be ready. And then in a referendum people will decide whether there should be a new constitution or not,” Lukashenko said.
According to him, to date, the main proposals for amending the constitution have not been fully formed. They will concern the redistribution of power and party building.
“In the economy, we will leave the proposal that we have a socially oriented state,” Lukashenko added.
At the same time, he noted that he was not tired of fulfilling his presidential duties.
“The president is a squirrel in a wheel. It's impossible to stop. The wheel turns - you run, run, run. Probably, until, as people say, you get overwhelmed and fall. Therefore, you get used to it, and there is no such feeling that, oh, I’m tired, that’s it, I don’t want to, I’m leaving and so on,” Lukashenko said.
However, at the end of the interview he says that “he is no longer so keenly aware of the fact that he will have to end someday.” After leaving office, Lukashenko plans to rest, but “if necessary” he will help.
“I’ll translate it into understandable language: maybe by the end of the year we’ll come up with some project for the sake of form and/or one that won’t suit everyone. We will further discuss it at the end of 2021 and decide that it needs to be finalized in 2022. At the end of the year we’ll fix something and try to push “this” into 2023. True, we are mobilizing resources to postpone it to 2024. For example, let’s justify the transfer by a lack of funds in the budget, and then 2025 is already around the corner. Why not hold a referendum along with the 2025 “elections”? It’s also easier to manipulate…”, Belarusian political scientist Dmitry Bolkunets commented on Lukashenko’s words in his Telegram channel.
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