Leonid Kravchuk: "A president who contravene Constitution is not a president" :: Charter'97 :: News

The first president of the independent Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk in his interview to Radio Svoboda commented on the referendum carried out in Belarus at which Lukashenka proposed to lift the presidential two-term limit. “When a person is doing something inconsistent with the law, or is using the situation not within the bounds of the Constitution and the law, people always oppose it. Another question is how numerous those people are. Today they are 5, tomorrow ten, and the day after tomorrow they could be 10 thousands. I repeat and I would repeat the same thing to Lukashenka and to the rest: the President must operate within the confines of the Constitution and the law. As soon as he contravenes the Constitution and the law, he ceases to be a president,” told Leonid Kravchuk.

The former Ukrainian President assessed the situation in Belarus in the following way:

“I cannot forgive the current Belarusian authorities for giving the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus Shushkevich a pension equal to several dollars. I will never forgive it. It means that the regime is immoral in its essence. Shushkevich was criticizing them, but he has a right to criticize anybody in a democratic state. But the authorities have failed to rise above the primitive concepts and ambitions, and put such a man in this condition. It does not ornament the authorities and the nation. All that I am reading, seeing, analyzing – it is simply a disgrace”.