The Communist Party of Belarus (Belarusian: Камуністы́чная па́ртыя Белару́сі, Kamunistychnaya Partyia Belarusi; Russian: Коммунистическая партия Белоруссии, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Belorussii) is a communist political party in Belarus. It was created in 1996 and supports the government of president Alexander Lukashenko. The leader of the party is Tatsyana Holubeva.
The party suggested merging with the Party of Communists of Belarus (PKB) on July 15, 2006. While the Communist Party of Belarus is a pro-presidential party, the Party of Communists of Belarus is one of the major opposition parties in Belarus. According to Sergey Kalyakin, the chairman of the PKB, the so-called "re-unification" of the two parties was a plot designed to oust the opposition PKB.
As a member of the world Communist movement, the KPB enjoys relations with other communist parties in the region and throughout the world to a much greater extent than the PKB, which many in the region have considered "pro-Western."
At the 2004 parliamentary election, the KPB obtained 5.99% and 8 out of 110 seats in the House of Representatives, in 2008 merely 6 seats and even less in 2012 with 3 seats. Still, because of the party's support for President Lukashenko, 17 of its members were appointed by him in the upper house, the Council of the Republic, in 2012.
Famous quotes containing the words communist and/or party:
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“... the idea of a classless society is ... a disastrous mirage which cannot be maintained without tyranny of the few over the many. It is even more pernicious culturally than politically, not because the monolithic state forces the party line upon its intellectuals and artists, but because it has no social patterns to reflect.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)