Alexander Lukashenko on mission of Belarusian People’s Congress

According to the plan, the Belarusian People’s Congress deals with global issues - from approving the Military Doctrine and the National Security Concept amending the Constitution to introducing a state of emergency. The Belarusian People’s Congress

in this new form was often called "collective Lukashenko" for the future. Alexander Lukashenko told about the mission of the All-Belarusian Assembly once again today.

At the same time, the head of state noted that, in general, the place and role of the Belarusian People’s Congress are defined by the Constitution. "But these are general provisions, general requirements, general functional responsibilities of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, but in details, in specifics, we have the opposite," the President noted and explained using national security issues as an example. "If it is determined that the Supreme People's Assembly makes decisions in terms of national security (war and peace, etc.), this is only the authority of the Supreme People's Assembly. The President makes a proposal, if God forbid, there is a war or a threat of war, we gather the Belarusian People’s Congress, make a proposal, consider it and transfer the country to a war footing, if suddenly there is a war tomorrow (I am taking an extreme example). The Belarusian People’s Congress has this authority," Lukashenko noted. The same approach, according to him, applies to personnel decisions, which are within the competence of the Belarusian People’s Congress

According to him, it is advisable to hold meetings of the Presidium of the Belarusian People’s Congress two or three times a year. "We will not make them frequent or small. We will hold them as issues accumulate," the head of state explained.

"The Belarusian People’s Congress should deal exclusively with its own issues in accordance with the Constitution," Alexander Lukashenko said.

Alexander Lukashenko reminded that the country will hold presidential elections on January 26 and spoke about the development of the program to be presented to the attention of citizens. “Since we have a certain unity, the program of the incumbent President, which is being worked out by all of us today, will be a reference point in January, December even, for all the Belarusian people. But we'll be able to detail the tasks for the next year and, maybe, a look at the next five years on the basis of this program after the presidential elections,” said the head of state.

Strong regions are the priority of the forthcoming five-year program. And now the number one task is to prevent the outflow of the economically active from the regions. This means we need to give people interesting jobs and living conditions. We understood this not yesterday that is why we have long been working on point programs in Polesie, in the south-east of Mogilev Region, in the agro-industrial complex of Vitebsk region, which should stimulate and cheer up the hinterland.

A working group of the Presidential Administration from all 118 districts gathered answers to the question of what is missing to make decisions.