Judging from the Orange Revolution, it is known that for a political movement to be more likely to succeed, the opposition must be united behind a charismatic candidate. There is a new face for the Belarussian opposition front these days, who has recently appeared to challenge Lukashenko for the presidency in summer 2006. And it looks like he may be uniting two of the opposition parties.

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. “ÄWill of the PeopleÅ 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.”

Try to ignore the pro-government bias in the article as much as possible. The two parties are actually completely merging.

On February 19, Central Committee of BSDP (NH) and party conference of BSDH had sittings in neighboring rooms of the one building that not fare away from Minsk.

Participants of both sittings passed a declaration on merger of two parties that probably will be called Belarusian social democratic Party (Hramada). Such a name was chosen because of the requirement by the Ministry of Justice to exclude words “people’s” and “national” from the names of the parties.

Parties declared about common ideological fundament, historical community and the same views of building society and moreover about the intention to conduct a joint Congress on March 19th. A former rector of the BSU Alexander Kozulin was proposed to the position of the chairman of the future united social democratic Party. BSDP (NH) will be a platform for the new party.

The agreement of parties’ merger assumes parity in electing delegates to the merger Congress; Central Committee of the new party consisting of 60 persons; two chairmen from each party and two more proposed by the leader of the party. Thus the number of chairmen will be equal to six.

On the same sitting BSDP (NH) have elected new secretary general (Aleg Bogutskiy) and treasurer (Pavel Hormash) who are MSD members.

This all comes on the heels of the EU declaring Belarus a dictatorship, and freezing the accounts of Lukashenko and his cronies in Europe.

Being about a year and a half out from the next presidential election, it is of course pertinent to not jump the gun. But with sellable candidates emerging, and a jailed political opponent by the name of Mikhail Marynich stirring up fever among activists, the chances are better this time around. And given the EU’s recent declarations, and President Bush’s signing of the Belarus Democracy Act, not to mention Condi Rice’s declaration of Belarus as an outpost of tyranny, we clearly know where the United States and the EU are looking for another revolution.

A youth movement of note is ZUBR, while not strong as of yet, has a news page, where you will find a lot about protests regarding Mikhail Marynich, and a page where you can download for free democracy literature. And if you read any article today, make sure to read this one by the BBC on Belarus’ struggle for freedom.