MINSK, 24 February (BelTA) - Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic Natalya Kochanova met with the head of the CIS observation mission, Deputy Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee – CIS Executive Secretary Ilkhom Nematov in Minsk on 4 February, BelTA has learned.
"I was a member of the Constitutional Commission and the working group. The Council of the Republic received about a hundred proposals on the additions and amendments to the Constitution. A number of them have been included in the draft, which has been put up for the vote. Large-scale work was carried out to discuss the novelties that were proposed to the Basic Law of our country. We discussed them in community liaison offices, dialogue platforms, meetings with labor collectives. I will say that we also opened a public community liaison office for these issues. People were actively reaching out to us and, you know, people were really interested. There was a serious discussion, and many citizens made their specific proposals," Natalya Kochanova emphasized.
The speaker of the upper house of Belarusian Parliament spoke about the issues that most Belarusians are concerned about. "We identified three issues that were of greater concern to our citizens. The first was about the marriage between a man and a woman, the second about two terms for the president, and the third - healthcare," she said.
The speaker added that just yesterday she visited several polling stations and noted a pleasant trend: people are actively taking advantage of early voting and going to the polls to cast their vote.
"I have no doubt that you will apply an objective and impartial approach in your work," Natalya Kochanova said. She also thanked the observation mission for their work at such an important time for Belarus.
