By Jan Maksymiuk

RFE/RL

The Minsk-based "Narodnaya volya," the biggest opposition daily in Belarus, carried a front page manifesto on 19 February of a new political movement called Will of the People (Volya naroda).

The manifesto was signed by Alexander Kozulin, former rector of Belarusian State University (BDU), and more than 80 others, made up of university people and writers from Minsk but primarily a motley group of unknown public activists or ordinary workers and peasants from the provinces.

The same day Kozulin addressed a joint convention of Belarus' two cantankerous opposition parties -- the Social Democratic Party (Popular Assembly) and the Social Democratic Assembly, where he emerged as the probable leader of a new, united organization of Belarusian social democrats. In the following days, Kozulin gave a number of interviews to non-state newspapers, which have fueled rumors that he may challenge Lukashenko for the post of president in 2006.

The rather mildly worded manifesto of the Will of the People movement essentially criticizes the current authorities in Belarus (without mentioning President Lukashenko at all) for pursuing a policy of self-isolation in the international arena and sowing national discord at home. "[Will of the People] will help to map out many necessary ways of economic, social, and cultural development, and will manage to promote tens of new national leaders out of the masses," the document says, in what appears to be the most specific passage relating to the new movement's plans. However, the manifesto remains silent on whether Belarus' new ways should go eastward, westward, or lead in some other direction.

Kozulin's subsequent interviews have not dispersed the fog shrouding his movement's aims and aspirations. "Lukashenko has done a lot of good for our country," Kozulin said in a recent interview. "But the accumulation of consequences of his erroneous decisions and his reluctance to make compromises have already led to the situation that we are left without allies and friends.... With this leader the state does not have any more prospect of serious, dynamic growth and development."

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