Pavel Seviarynets in «Sovetskaya Belorussiya”
On March 5, 2015 Pavel
Seviarynets, co-chairman of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party, and Lev
Margolin, deputy chairman of the United Civil Party, took part in around
table in “Sovetskaya Belorussiya”newspaper (“SB”), where
they presented the anti-corruption platform of the opposition.For the first time in
many years opposition leaders in Belarus were invited to a state newspaper.
“The issue of “SB” was
released on the day of the arrival of the IMF mission in Minsk, – says Pavel
Seviarynets – and it explains a lot. My key question – How many residences does
the head of state have? – was not published. However, several important facts
were included such as mentioning of the BCD, of our idea to introduce a kind of
“Lincoln Law” and the call to change the power of Lukashenko. Those
were distributed in 400 thousand copies!”
In Seviarynets’ view the high
level of corruption in Belarus originates from the fact that the state runs
about 70 – 75% of economy; therefore corruption is in the public sector.
“Corruption will decrease with the help of political will, free media and
fair elections. For example, the deputies in the local councils are not
elected, but appointed. We have officials, who are not accountable to their
constituencies; they are accountable to higher authorities”.
Pavel Seviarynets said that
Christian Democrats have a programme proposal to deal with the issue of
corruption: the one, who proves or helps to prove a case of corruption in
court, receives 25% of what is refunded to the state from this case. In
addition it is proposed to use international experience – high salaries for
state officers in combination with strict liability, dismissal of entire
departments, when someone is involved in corruption, etc. Another way to get
rid of corruption is to have a much smaller state apparatus.
