National seminar-conference “New methods and forms of public communication at the grassroots level”

Today’s Belarus sovereign policy can be described as ‘the state for the people’, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the national seminar-conference to discuss new methods and forms of public communication at the grassroots level.

“What we will discuss at today’s seminar is, one might say, the quintessence of the policy of our modern sovereign state. As we often call it, absolutely fairly, it is the state for the people,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.

According to the President, no matter how hard it was during various periods of Belarusian history, the country has always maintained the established standards like social justice, equal rights and opportunities for all, national, cultural values and traditional way of life.

“All this is the development program of our state. And let’s be frank: coming to polling stations, be it at parliamentary elections, elections to local councils, referendums, the people first of all vote for a particular political course,” the head of state said.

The head of state noted that for more than a quarter of a century Belarus has been consistently strengthening the vertical of power bottom up, bringing it as close as possible to the people.

“In other words, effective communication and a trust-based dialogue between the authorities and the public should be at the heart of the work of the administrative and managerial system. This is the ideal we should strive for. It fully chimes in with our political traditions, the origins of which emerged much earlier than in the contemporary history. Since the ancient times, the mentality of Belarusians has been defined by a strong sense of justice, collective thinking and mutual responsibility for the Fatherland. This is how the Belarusian nation was born. It rests on true democratic values,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.

The President noted that all aristocratic regimes in Belarusian history - princely, gentry and royal - are strongly associated with oppression. “Contrary to that, the Belarusian state was created by the people and for the people and it remains this way. In other words, when it comes to new forms and methods of communication with the public at the local level, we must understand that the administrative vertical should by no means be set off against the people,” the head of state noted.

"The bureaucratic apparatus are not ‘demigods’ in our country. This is something we can be proud of. In layperson terms, at the helm of the country are not oligarchs or hereditary rulers, but ordinary people who have worked their way up from the ground level," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The President noted that all of them receive education, move up the career ladder, create families, and raise children just like everyone else. "They comply with the main requirement: a wealth practical experience and knowledge of life. As they say, with first-hand experience,” the President emphasized. “Therefore, government officials understand the issues that people raise with them. People need to be heard and problems solved."