The Movement for Freedom, led by former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich, unveiled a new version of its "People’s Program" at a news conference held in Minsk on Wednesday.
The program contains proposals for reforming the social, economic and political systems in the country, said Yuras Hubarevich, deputy chairman of the movement.
"We had started to work on it before the 2010 presidential election and the most active stage of its development creation fell on the 2011 crisis," he said. "We managed to involve around 40 Belarusian experts in various spheres, from economics to social policy."
According to Mr. Hubarevich, the authors of the program took into consideration public opinion. "We published the draft program on our website and received hundreds of critical remarks on more than 40 subjects, which were taken into consideration in the development of the program," he said.
"A considerable number of opposition activists intend to use the campaign campaigning stage in the parliamentary elections to promote ideas for reforming and modernizing Belarus," Mr. Hubarevich said. "The People’s Program offers them its ideas for publication through the state media, for use during radio and television appearances and in leaflets and other campaign materials."
According to him, the movement has agreements on the use of the program with 54 contenders for the House of Representatives, including independent ones and those nominated by parties. "We expect that with their help, we can reach 3.5 million to four million voters in Belarus," Mr. Hubarevich said.
Economist Syarhey Chaly, one of the authors of the program, noted that it differed from other such programs. "That was an attempt to make a joint, non-party program and, secondly, to involve a large number of experts in its development," he said.
"The program has nothing particularly new, but if we start to implement it and carry it through, we can build a new efficient economy in a historically short period of time, shorter than 10 years," Mr. Chaly said.
