POLITICIANS AND EXPERTS COMMENT ON LUKASHENKO'S POSSIBLE RE-ELECTION

MOSCOW, September 10 (RIA Novosti) - Valery Khomyakov, director general of the Council for National Strategy: Unfortunately, Belarussian society will be positive about prolonging Lukashenko's political life. It is unfortunate because there are no serious opposition leaders in Belarus, and because Lukashenko has been manipulating integration sentiments for ten years, backing off every time when it came to the crunch. Therefore, the Russian authorities should force Lukashenko to make steps toward rapprochement with Russia.

Boris Nemtsov, former co-chairman of the SPS (Union of Right Forces party): If Lukashenko is re-elected, further developments will be as follows. Opposition politicians will be banned from participating in elections, and newspapers will be closed. Lukashenko is hopeful that the Russian authorities are busy with other things now. According to Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin indirectly opposed Lukashenko's candidacy when he said that, as a guarantor of the Constitution, he was against constitutional amendments.

Stanislav Shushkevich, former Belarussian leader: Now people will hardly protest against Lukashenko's candidacy. Although, according to some estimates, merely 25% of the population are ready to vote for him, he could not have chosen a better moment for holding the referendum - at a time when terrorist attacks are taking place all around the world, everything is calm in Belarus. He is fully aware that the administrative resource is as large as ever, and it will not be difficult to rig the referendum.