Annual address

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on 10 April made his annual address to the National Assembly, which consists of the Chamber of Representatives and the Council of the Republic. Touching upon his recent decree on Western gratuitous assistance to Belarus, he explained why he had to introduce rigorous state control over aid shipments. According to Lukashenka, under the pretext of sending humanitarian aid, the West is trying to install a system for falsifying the upcoming presidential elections, Belapan reported. "They [the West] do not need transparency [in the elections]. They ship whole systems here, beginning with [those for] falsifying the upcoming elections, and create computer networks," the agency quoted him as saying. Lukashenka added: "We don't need a [Western] computerized system for falsifying elections, we don't need [it], we will create a state one."