Will Belarusian MPs fight in front of TV-cameras?

The sessions of the House of Representatives will be broadcasted live on TV. Chairman of the House Uladzimir Andreichanka came up with this idea in view of the upcoming session. Head of the Information Administration of the Parliament's lower house Mikalaj Lis confirms: TV broadcasting is sure to happen.

"We are holding radio broadcasting and will possibly do it also on TV. There's no concrete date when we start yet. We coordinate with the Belarusian State TV and Radio company about the radio broadcasts, they organize everything. Most likely, they will be dealing with TV-broadcasting as well."

This is not something new for Belarus - sessions of the Supreme Council in early 90s were sown all over the country. These TV-programs were extremely popular as the people could monitor what their representatives actually did, member of the Supreme Council of the 12th convocation Aleh Trusau recalls.

"This is very important. At first, the voters always see whether their MP presents at the session or just hangs around someplace else. Secondly, we had a right to read out people's pleas or appeals on air. And the government was obliged to answer them. It's highly important that the people should see their MP. Then everyone knew how their MPs look like!"

Trusau recalls that when he was an MP he knew a great number of people - school headmasters, shops directors, and just active people.

"People used to recognize me, they knew what I looked like," he says, complaining that today, most people don't even know their MPs names. Trusau does not believe that the House of Representatives will ever become as open to the population as the Supreme Council used to be.

"I'm afraid it will be some profanation, like, they would show five minutes at the start, and five minutes at the finish. I don't think they will broadcast the whole session."

While Belarus only plans to get the MPs back on TV, Ukraine has had a TV-channel that broadcasts the Supreme Council's sessions for 14 years by now.

"We have our own TV-channel, called "Rada". It broadcasts sessions, briefings, press-conferences, committees' sessions. maybe it does not broadcast all the sessions, but any session can be broadcasted live upon the MPs wish. As for the Parliament's sessions, they are always broadcasted live," says the press-office of the Ukrainian Parliament.

They add that the channel is quite popular. This is not a surprise if we recall the thrilling episodes that sometimes come from the Supreme Council of Ukraine. Especially, before some significant political events. 

Belarusian MPs will not probably look as expressive as their Ukrainian colleagues, on TV screens. However, when the sessions of the House of Representatives are shown on TV, we'll at least know then in the face.

Photo - pixanews.com