BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/03/2008

Belarusian Youth Front Leaves Opposition Coalition

The Youth Front, an organization that has failed in several attempts to register in Belarus, but was recently registered in the Czech Republic, has decided at a conference in Minsk to withdraw from the United Pro-Democratic Forces, Belarus's main opposition coalition, Belapan and RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported on March 17. "This idea was prompted by the complete ideological and organizational disunity among the members of the coalition, who have neither a common strategy nor a single leader," Zmitser Dashkevich, who was elected chairman of the Youth Front, told Belapan. "Furthermore, the members of the coalition are increasingly dominated by the Communist leader [Syarhey Kalyakin], who openly positions himself as a candidate in the next presidential election. That's why the Youth Front has announced its withdrawal from the coalition and recalled its representatives from the coalition's Political Council." Dashkevich also suggested setting up an alliance of center-right pro-democratic groups as an alternative to the United Pro-Democratic Forces. Participants at the Youth Front's conference also decided to continue attempts to obtain legal status in Belarus. The lack of such status gives the authorities grounds for prosecuting Youth Front members for acting on behalf of an unregistered organization. However, the Belarusian authorities, in striving for warmer relations with the West, recently released Dashkevich and Artur Finkevich before the end of the prison term they were given for leading an unregistered organization. AM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2008/03/3-cee/cee-180308.asp

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