№ 4 - 2001
Kirilkina I.L.
Byelorussia’s Party System: Condition and the Main Tendencies of Development

The article presents the author’s attempt to retrace the principal stages of the evolution of the party system in the Republic of Byelarus since the attainment of independence up to the present time. What is particularly attended to is the conditions of the formation of the party system and those external and internal factors that more decisively determined its specific features. While stressing relativity and instability of prevailing ideological orientations, the author, nevertheless, singles out three main trends: variations of the left idea; non-left opposition; and, finally, parties of the so-called national idea. As resulting from the analysis, a number of considerations are suggested about eventual further party evolution and about the structure of the party system as it seems thus likely to appear in the nearest future.