I reported on many elections.
I saw premieres and presidents coming to polling stations, voting and then answering several reporters questions.
But I never saw anything similar to the scene in the polling station 478 in Minsk.
The longtime leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, once called “the last dictator of Europe”, has arrived to vote. Then, while Belarus was still voting, the candidate Lukashenko held four and a half hours a live press conference on the State TV.
It was an opportunity to examine him about a controversial vote that his critics had condemned as a “fraud”.
“What a miserable question did you prepare for me?” he asked. “As you always do.”
“Good morning,” I replied.
“Good morning, Steve.”
“How can you call this a democratic election, when your main rivals are or in prison or exile?” I asked.
“Some are in prison and some in exile. But you are here!” said Lukashenko.
“Everyone has the right to choose. It’s a democracy. Some have chosen prison, others persecution. We have never driven anyone out of the country.”
In reality, the brutal laying of protesters by the authorities after the presidential election 2020. The personal choice was out of the question.
You recently said ‘we must not close people to the mouth’ [silence people]”I reminded him.
“But your rivals are not only prevented from voting. Some of them are closed. There are currently more than 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. Isn’t it time to open prison cells and release them? People like Marija Hellsci, Sergei Tihanovski …”
“You keep telling me about Mary. God,” Lukashenko sighed.
“Ok, I’ll answer you asking … Prison is for people who have opened their mouths too much and who have broken the law. Don’t you have no prisons in Britain and America?”
“In any country, if you break the law, you must bear the consequences,” he continued. “The law is strict, but it’s the law. I didn’t invent it. You must adhere to it.”
“You have to comply with the law,” I got into. “But these people are in prison for criticizing you.”
“The ignorance of the law does not liberate you with responsibility before him.”
Although the prominent opposition persons were not allowed to run, the name of Alexander Lukashenko was not only on the ballot. There were four more candidates. But they came to the spoilers more than serious challengers.
“We talked to some other candidates,” I said to Lukashenka. “One of them, the leader of the Communist Party, openly supports you. The other praises you. You are strange choices, aren’t you, with such anti -candidates …”
“Steve, this is a whole new experience for you!” He replied, with laughter and applause of local journalists in the room.
“That’s true,” I said. – I haven’t seen such elections yet.
“The communist policy based on justice is the same policy that we promote,” Lukashenko said. – So why would you vote against me?
The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas characterized these presidential elections in Belarus as “an obvious insult of democracy.”
Alexander Lukashenko does not seem to care.
“I swear to you,” he told me, “I don’t care if you will admit our choices or not. The most important thing for me is that the people of Belarus acknowledge them.”
