Lukashenko: Belarusians voted for peace and order

"Belarus is governed by the rule of law. We must not allow crime to go rampant because someone might think that the law will not work in these conditions. The Belarusians have voted for peace and order in the country, and we are obliged to fulfill this mandate of voters. Keeping our direct opponents in sight, we are missing a neutral yet also active part of our society, which stands, if we may say so, between the authorities and the opposition. These people want the situation to stabilize. Some of them are hesitating. They want clear guidelines how the social and political situation will develop further in Belarus,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

According to the president, this is a primary task for the government. The head of state expressed dissatisfaction with the Education Ministry. “Some students demonstrate their careless attitude towards higher education. Thus the value of higher learning as an important social institution is eroded. Rectors of these higher education institutions are underperforming on this front. Next week we need to take a look into the personnel policy of such universities,” he stressed.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also touched upon the issues related to the country's trade unions. He emphasized that their task is to protect workers' rights. “Most leaders of the trade union organizations did not succumb to the political hype. They did well during the election period and continue working hard in the interests of the country. There are some leaders, especially at the grassroots, who should have been on the frontline at the enterprises. Instead they have gone into the shadows. We need to immediately revise the approaches to the work of trade unions, and target our efforts at forming trust-based interaction between the enterprises' management and workers,” the president said.

The trade unions should also monitor public catering, and pricing policies in trade and public utilities, the head of state added.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also sees many shortcomings in the work of the media. The president demanded to sort out the staffing needs of the main media outlets shortly. “The Presidential Administration will supervise this process. We must have a powerful core ready to defend the information sovereignty accurately, professionally, and most importantly, proactively. It took our major TV networks and other media outlets two months to start working as they do now. You have to work in this way all the time. Journalism must finally cease to be ‘restrained' as it has been the case in our country until now. I share the responsibility in this regard, too” the president said.

The state should carry out a more persistent information policy on the internet, be proactive but avoid fake news, the president is convinced.

“Some say that the country should return to normalcy. Calm down, the country has not lost its balance. If it were, you would see my harshest reaction: this is the most important issue of the president. People work in rural areas, small and medium-sized towns, regional capitals and in Minsk. There is no enterprise idling. Despites all difficult challenges that come from outside, we are, nevertheless, holding up doing the best we can,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.

The president stressed the importance of the personnel policy. Here, according to him, it is crucial to help forward enterprising people who have an active public stance and who can engage in a dialogue with the public. “Reliability is above all today. Our personnel policy was a bit careless. We have seen some people switch sides, the people the state has nurtured. Therefore, today we focus on loyalty, patriotism, and commitment to the people's ideas,” the head of state stressed.

Aleksandr Lukashenko added that all social institutions are working properly, without failures today. He said that this is, first of all, thanks to the public administration system built up over the years of independence. “Despite the global shocks, the economy remains stable and honors its obligations, both the external debt and social commitments. We even find new opportunities to increase the country's investment and industrial capacity. The main thing is to ensure a decent standard of living of people. Despite all the problems I have mentioned, the economy remains priority number one,” the president concluded.