BELARUS’ PARLIAMENT CHAIRMAN DEFENDS TURF.

Addressing the Belarusian Supreme Soviet’s opening autumn session, chairman Mechislau Hrib sharply criticized President Aleksandr Lukashenko for violating the separation of power through his presidential decrees "correcting" the state budget, suspending parliamentary immunity, transferring the parliament building into the ownership of the executive branch while halting its financing, and not paying the deputies’ salaries. Hrib also took issue with the advocates of Belarus-Russia reunification, Interfax reported. Although himself a former hard-line communist like Lukashenka, Hrib has become a defender of Belarusian statehood and of legislative prerogatives against executive usurpation.

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