Lukashenko calls the safety of his supporters a condition for leaving power

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said he was ready to leave power only if there were no protests in the country and if his opposition provided security guarantees to his supporters. He said that in order to implement the last point, the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly must receive constitutional powers.

“My main condition for leaving power is peace in the country, order, no protest actions, not turning the country over, expressing an opinion within the law. Second condition. If it turns out that the wrong “those” come to power and they have different views, then the second point we will write down that not a single hair from the head of you and the supporters of the current president can fall, “Mr. Lukashenko said during his speech to the delegates of the meetings (recording in the Telegram channel “Pool of the First”, presumably controlled by the president’s press service).

According to the President of Belarus, in the event of a change of power, the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly should stabilize the situation in the country. “We must have a clear safety net so as not to lose the country,” he said (quoted by Tut.by). During his speech, he promised that the draft of the new Constitution of Belarus will be ready in 2021, and it will be submitted to a referendum early next year.

After the presidential elections in Belarus in 2020, protests are taking place in the country. Opponents of Mr. Lukashenko consider Svetlana Tikhanovskaya the winner of the elections. The president himself said that he did not consider the post-election protests of 2020 to be particularly different from those that took place after his previous re-election. In January, he noted that he considers the closure of borders with Russia to be one of the reasons for the duration of the current protests.

As Kommersant previously reported, at the upcoming meeting of the presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian side intends to ask Russia for the remainder of the funds allocated for the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov and the Ministry of Finance of Belarus did not confirm this information.