Jaraslau Bekish: We need some positive movement

The National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum is to build constructive communications in order to get rid of inner contradictions and discords.

 This opinion was expressed by the new Belarusan National Coordinator of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Jaraslau Bekish.

As EuroBelarus Information Service reported earlier, during the Forum that was taking place in Stockholm the representative of the ecological association “Green network” Jaraslau Bekish was elected Belarusan National Coordinator of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum from Belarus. In the course of Belarusan delegation vote 19 out of 23 participants of the Forum gave their vote for the Jaraslau Bekish candidature.

His nomination on the role of the National Coordinator cannot be called unexpected. Over a year Jaraslau Bekish was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Platform for the EaP CSF: “Recently I had to place on myself the function of the National Coordinator, as the former Coordinator Siarhei Lisichenok had to fall out of the working process at the certain stage for a number of reasons and, as a matter of fact, has to relieve himself of the functions of the National Coordinator. The results of the vote appeared to be a certain surprise for me. 19 out of 23 representatives of the Belarusan delegation have endorsed my candidature. Of course, I’m pleased with such a consolidated position of my colleagues, which testifies to a rather high level of trust as well as tells something about certain expectations from me as from the person who is to fulfill the functions of the National Coordinator in the near future”.

According to Jaraslau Bekish, nobody talks about shifting accents in the work of the National Coordinator, as in the embedded structure, both within the National Platform and within the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum the functions of the National Coordinator remain the same: “I will be in charge of the interaction between the Coordinative Committee of the National Platform and the EaP CSF Steering Committee. It is my responsibility as a National Coordinator. And as a representative of the “Green Network”, which is a participant of the National Platform, I’ll have to act within the scope of the recently adopted National Platform Development Concept”.

It is obvious that the new National Coordinator will have to actively participate in the settlement of a number of contradictions and discords that take place inside the National Platform of the Belarusan Civil Society. “We are sick and tired of these contradictions, - Jaraslau Bekish admits. – But the withdrawal of any contradictions is only possible if there is open and public communication between the participants of these contradictions and the bearers of different ideas”.

According to Jaraslau Bekish, the communication that to this day has always been lacking is quite feasible to build: “Even here, in Stockholm, at level of the Belarusan delegation there is a discussion about whether the existing contradictions can influence our common actions as representatives of the civil society of Belarus at the Forum or not. The discussion was rather difficult, but we still managed to remove some questions within the delegation. And we should try to transform this progress on the country level. At least in the way we managed to perform that in Sweden, we should remove the existing contradictions at level of the National Platform, and further more – outside the National platform, at level of all Belarusan civil society as far as it is possible”.

“We have made a step in the positive direction. The main question now is whether we will manage to continue this movement. But it depends not only on my position as a National Coordinator. It depends on all the representatives of the Belarusan organizations that are part of the National Platform. And I hope it is not beyond our powers”, noted Jaraslau Bekish.