VITEBSK, 17 July (BelTA) – The previous military service should be a mandatory condition for presidential candidates in Belarus and this requirement should be formalized in the new Constitution, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he inspected the 103rd Independent Guards Airborne Brigade in Vitebsk on 16 July, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that work is underway on the new law on civil service. “We want civil servants to have the status of the military. What is the difference? Civil service is sometimes even more important. They want to command an army, therefore the civil service should have the adequate status,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The requirements should be just as stringent for the position of the president. Aleksandr Lukashenko suggested formalizing a new requirement for people who want to run for presidency in Belarus: only a Belarusian citizen with the previous military service can be the president of Belarus.
““Some of those who seek top jobs have not had military experience! We need to write it down even in the Constitution that a person who has not served in the army cannot become president. What kind of a commander-in-chief this person will be if this person does not know what an army is. This person will gawk at weapons thinking that an SVD [Dragunov sniper rifle] is a tank. If a person has not served in the army, this person should not be there [in the position of the president],” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
“If a woman wants to run for presidency, we will send her to the Vitebsk brigade for training, so that she will learn the difference between an armored personnel carrier and a tank or an infantry fighting vehicle,” the head of state joked.
