Pavel Latushka: Lukashenko's Parliament Could Not Even Imagine What the Coordination Council Has Achieved

Photo: Ruslan Seradzyuk

On 18 April, a press conference of the Coalition "Latushka and the 'For Freedom' Movement" was held at the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw, as part of the election campaign for the fourth convocation of the Coordination Council.

During the event, the coalition's list of candidates was presented, and its official electoral programme was formally launched.

Pavel Latushka presented the results of the coalition's work during the third convocation of the Coordination Council. The report covered six key pillars of the programme: Accountability, Independence, Solidarity and the Diaspora, Pressure, Foreign Policy, and the Future.

Speakers at the press conference included members of the coalition: faction leader Pavel Latushka, chairman of the "For Freedom" Movement Yury Hubarevich, Coordination Council Speaker Artsiom Brukhan, head of the "Pritulai Miane" foundation Hanna Federonak, and head of the Coordination Council's Legal Commission Mikhail Kirylyuk.

In his address, Pavel Latushka emphasised that in the fourth convocation of the Coordination Council, the coalition will continue its systematic work to hold representatives of the Lukashenko regime accountable. The faction leader stated that the goal is to secure 3 arrest warrants for Lukashenko: for crimes against humanity committed against the Belarusian people; for the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children; and for the act of aggression carried out against Ukraine.

Latushka also noted that the coalition will continue to lobby for sanctions pressure on the regime in order to achieve a change in its internal repressive and external aggressive policies, as well as to pursue the release of all political prisoners.

"The Coordination Council can and should be criticised — but one must not turn a blind eye to the fact that it operates on the front line of pressure from the regime's security services. A war is effectively being waged against us. The regime's goal, and that of its security services, is to destroy the representative body of the Belarusian people."

"But despite this, we have achieved unprecedented results. Coordination Council delegates have held bilateral meetings with parliamentarians from dozens of democratic countries, lobbying on issues of accountability for representatives of the Lukashenko regime and sanctions pressure. Our representative body has been recognised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe — in which, for the first time in the history of the democratic forces, our official delegations are working. The Coordination Council also has its own delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of Euronest and a shadow delegation in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The Coordination Council has likewise been recognised by the European Parliament and the Senate of Poland."

"We have successfully lobbied for a series of additions and amendments to European Parliament resolutionsconcerning sanctions pressure, accountability for the torture of political prisoners, international criminal responsibility for crimes against the Belarusian people, and for the aggression against Ukraine."

"The House of Representatives or the Council of the Republic could not even have imagined what the Coordination Council has managed to achieve in just one year and ten months of work", said Pavel Latushka.

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