The main political news of the last week was the statement of Alexander Lukashenko that "all sensible people who love their country, of whatever political camp they belong to, need to sit at a round table".
The president's words were actively discussed by the opposition and media, and some politicians seriously believed in Lukashenko's intention to start the dialogue.
However, on September 3 and 4 the state television explained the official position on this issue. The invitation to discuss problems was addressed "to all sensible people", to whom "the fifth column" and "so-called opposition,"according to the state TV men, does not apply[/url].
Did the Belarusian opposition expect such harsh statements, whether Lukashenko's proposal was the usual demagoguery or an attempt to "appease" the West, since when has the Belarusian TV so freely interpreted the words of the president?
These questions were answered to UDF.BY correspondent by Valery Karbalevich the political analyst, Sergey Kalyakin the leader of "Fair World" party, and Stanislav Shushkevich the leader of Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly party.
According to Valery Karbalevich, this state-run media comment is not a surprise for the majority of analysts:
"Initially it was clear, that this is not about a dialogue but about the imitation of a dialogue. Moreover, this simulation is caused exceptionally by the difficult economic situation and by the desire to establish at least some contact with the West. In addition, Lukashenko's words also had an internal recipient - the Belarusian society, which, in contrast to the official statements about its political apathy and inertia, apprehended the Belarusian authorities' actions against the opposition and political prisoners extremely negatively. Of course, some Lukashenko's words is an attempt to neutralize the People's Assembly [new project of the opposition] and actions of Revolution through a social network movement. The authorities are still naively hoping to catalyze the powerful protest potential, which is now in Belarus, into some sort of peaceful and innocent form for themselves. That's the whole point of the round table."
Sergei Kalyakin initially also did not believe in the viability of the idea of an open and civilized dialogue with the authorities.
"I believe that the authorities simply is not ready for a serious and substantive conversation, they have no specific proposals, nor the desire to produce them. Even the very beginning of the round table statement was very vague: no rules, no agenda, no deadlines. So, we treated him skeptically right away", explained the leader of "Fair World" party.
