Lukashenko made an appeal to Belarusians

The incumbent President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko today delivers a message to the people of Belarus and the National Assembly. Today, he and other registered candidates, less than a week before the August 9 presidential election, released campaign programs.

Lukashenka's message was scheduled for April, but was postponed twice. “Russia is afraid of losing us, because it has no allies but us,” Lukashenka said today.

• According to him, Russia will always be the main ally of Belarus, although it “in vain” changed fraternal relations to partnerships.

• Belarus will build relations with both China and Europe.

• Belarus has lost "$9.5 billion in economic growth over five years" due to trade wars, unfair prices, expensive loans.

Lukashenka's program is called "Together for Belarus!" and sustained in a moderately populist vein.

The president, running for his sixth term, promises to prevent shock therapy, double salaries in five years, support investors as much as possible and equalize opportunities for private and state companies, develop industry and agriculture, and get rid of excessive dependence on oil and gas.

Lukashenka also promises constitutional reform, mainly related to the powers of state authorities. The form of changes to the basic law will be a referendum, which should take place "according to the law, not on the streets and squares, but through legal relations."

The presidential program was also published by the single opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, notes Dozhd . She encourages citizens to come to the polling stations. The unified headquarters promises, if Tikhanovskaya wins, to hold new elections with the participation of all alternative candidates, to rehabilitate political prisoners and to hold a referendum on returning to the 1994 Constitution with a limitation on presidential terms.