Presidential election described as trigger of international interference with Belarus' affairs

Lidia Yermoshina said: “Events in the political life of the last two decades demonstrate that no country without full monopoly on power can be free from the threat of coups. While national mentalities, religions, living standards and education standards may vary, there are common traits, which allow one to assume there is a common scenario for staging riots, however, it is filled with specifics to match every individual case. Since riots more and more often happen as a consequence of major election campaigns, one can conclude that elections are no longer an internal affair of the state but are a trigger for blatant international interference with affairs of the state.”

In her words, one can track another frightening trend after reviewing recent events. “Elections no longer serve the goal of ensuring people's unity. They more and more often serve a contrary goal, which is meant to split the society and the state. Other statements made as a rule by opponents of the key political force, who say that no riots will happen if elections are honest, are completely disproved by post-election events not only in Belarus but also in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and even the USA. And those are just recent election campaigns,” the official noted. “Due to the fault of Internet resources not only did moral guidelines crumble but the conscience of quite educated people is being fully realigned.”

Lidia Yermoshina drew attention to an alarming fact. “Not only the current generation of voters is an object of spiritual degeneration but the future one is, too – the kids. One can recall that kids and teenagers participated in unauthorized mass actions. One can recall the headline-making video of an 11-year-old spitting on a mass grave in Vitebsk. In my opinion, it is impossible to mend the situation only with patriotic education efforts of educational establishments and official mass media. Measures must be taken to make a different point of view, a non-patriotic point of view impossible. Otherwise, we will have a questionable future if one at all,” she stated.

The head of the Belarusian election organization agency added that social stability in the Union State of Belarus and Russia is threatened due to forthcoming election campaigns in Belarus and Russia. “We face an extremely complicated task of working out ways to organize election processes in a way to prevent them from becoming the shockwave that can bring our common house down,” she stated.

The international conference on counteracting external challenges and threats from the point of view of the parliamentary dimension of the Union State of Belarus and Russia includes online and offline components. Studios in Moscow, Minsk, and other CIS cities were made available. Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, members of the Belarusian parliament and the Russian one, representatives of international organizations, ministries and government agencies, higher educational establishments and research institutes of Belarus and Russia, leading political analysts and law experts were invited to participate in the conference.

The conference includes a plenary session and three panel sessions: “Counteraction of external challenges and threats. Observance of rights and freedoms of citizens in the Union State of Belarus and Russia and in foreign countries”, “Election legislation and the law enforcement practice in the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and foreign countries”, and “The preservation of historical memory, counteraction of attempts to glorify Nazism and revise results of the Great Patriotic War”.

The conference was organized upon instructions the leadership of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia gave during the 59th session of the assembly.