BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/12/2007

Belarus's leading opposition grouping changes leader

MINSK, December 10 (Itar-Tass) - Scholar of philology Leonid Borshchevsky has become a new leader of the Belarussian Popular Front, the most populous opposition grouping in Belarus.

Borshchevsky, 49, took reins of the party from Vintsuk Vyachorka, who chaired it since 1999.

The Belarussian Popular Front is a successor to a public association that was formed back in 1989 and had the name of Belarussian Revival Popular Front.

Its leaders and most of the activists uphold nationalistic views and vehemently object to President Alexander Lukashenko's course at political intergration with Russia, as well as to the construction of a Russia-Belarus Union State.

Signs of a split in the ranks of the organization have become noticeable recently, as some of the leaders including Vyachorka pressed forward with the idea of uniting with all other opposition groupings in a fight with the effective government.

Other leaders of the Front who oriented themselves entirely at the highly pro-Western former candidate for presidency Alexander Milinkiewicz claimed that any unions, altebeit temporary ones, with forces like the oppositionist Communist Party or the pro-Russian sections of Social Democrats are totally inconceivable.

The party congress mirrored the split accurately enough, as delegates were able to elect a leader only in the third round of voting.

Political analysts say Borshchevsky is a compromise figure. He said on the eve of voting he saw his role as not so much the one of a leader but, rather, the one of a crisis manager

He also stressed his willingness to maintain the continuity of the party's policy and promised that there will be no radical changes.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12163003&PageNum=0