In Belarus, the day of the election parody is slowly approaching, because the winner of the vote is known in advance. The self-proclaimed president Alexander Lukashenko will remain at the head of the state in less than two months, because he did not allow any of the opposition politicians to apply for the favor of the voters. And the number of so-called counter-candidates can be counted on the fingers of one hand, each of them behaves like his minion, all of them are only setting the scene for him in the imitation of free elections.
Photo: SITA/AP
Alexander Lukashenko has ruled as a tyrant in Belarus for three decades. After the expected victory in the so-called presidential elections, he can remain in power for another five years.
However, this does not mean that the complacent dictator is idle – that he does not campaign. On the contrary, there is hardly a single day when we do not hear about him. Although he is not dependent on the campaign, but especially before the so-called elections, he likes to present himself as an irreplaceable leader, without whom, according to him, Belarus could end up in ruin.
Lukashenko is considered a tyrant in many countries of the world, so it will certainly suit him when he is invited for an official visit somewhere abroad. He flew to Pakistan for three days this week. Although he praised that the relations between Minsk and Islamabad are great, just look at the mutual trade exchange and the picture is quite the opposite. The volume of exports from Belarus is pitiful: while in 2017 the value of exports was around 71 million dollars, last year it was only around 17 million.
The long-term problem of Belarus, which has been ruled continuously by Lukashenko for three decades, is its weak competitiveness in foreign markets (it mainly exports tractors and artificial fertilizers to Pakistan). During the visit to Islamabad, the export of machinery for farmers increased. By two pieces. Free. Lukashenko handed over the certificates of two tractors that he donated to local farmers. And now without irony: the members of his delegation agreed with the Pakistanis that Belarusian tractors will begin to be assembled in their country. The agreement is to build two factories for their production.
Meanwhile, Belarusians could learn that their self-proclaimed leader himself admits that he is not the democrat he claims to be. Ukrainian ex-president Petro Poroshenko, at a meeting with representatives of the Belarusian opposition living in exile, revealed what Lukashenko told him a few years ago. “He openly suggested to Poroshenko not to give up power and to use force if necessary. He made no secret of the fact that he remains in power not because the voters support him, but because he himself wants to,” Poroshenko’s assertion was relayed by the server Parlamencky kanal. He was the president of Ukraine until May 2019, when Volodymyr Zelensky replaced him as head of state. He did not elaborate. when Lukashenko advised him to stay in power even at the cost of violence, but apparently it was in October 2018, when the two met in At that time, few Ukrainians trusted Poroshenko, he was on the way to the second round of the elections, but in the second round in April 2019, Zelensky won 75 percent.
The state news agency BELTA has introduced a regular column called President’s Week, in which readers can find out details about Lukashenko’s activities. During the previous week, he also played hockey. His team won (of course) 10:3. BELTA reported that Lukashenko’s candidacy was supported by almost 1.6 million voters. The collection of signatures began on November 7 and will end on December 6. At least 100,000 of them are needed to register a presidential candidate with the Central Election Commission. Belarusians often obligingly sign for him, which Lukashenko knows about, but he still gushed over the fact that he did not expect such a large number of supporters at all…
Despite the fact that in the democratic world, Lukashenka is called the last dictator in Europe, he absolutely does not identify with this view of his behavior. He made it tragicomically clear at a meeting with students: “There is no dictatorship in the country, nor can there be. Because to be a dictator you need the tools of dictatorship. And what tools do I have? That’s what the Americans invented: Dictator! Dictator! And with what can I dictate? Do we have the strongest economy in the world? There is no dictatorship, I don’t need it.”
The reality of Lukashenko’s regime is the unfree conditions in the country, hundreds of jailed critics of his abuse of power, virtually non-existent opposition because its prominent representatives were forced to emigrate abroad. A mirror of the real dictatorship is also the strict application of the criminal law, according to which the court can send a person accused of defaming or insulting the head of state behind bars. Baťka, as Lukashenko is nicknamed in Belarus, has apparently hardened since the summer of 2020, when after another falsified presidential election, he was surprised by unprecedented protests by disgruntled voters, which he ordered to be brutally suppressed. “Over the past four years, more than 1,200 people have been sentenced for slandering or insulting Lukashenka,” the Vyasna organization, which is dedicated to the protection of human rights, warned recently.
Among those punished was, for example, blogger Nikolaj Klimovič, who ironically commented on the cartoon of Lukashenka on the social network. The prosecutor and after him the judge had no mercy: Klimovič, who had second-degree disability due to a diseased heart, was sent to prison for two years. Unfortunately, an elderly gentleman with failing health died after a few weeks of imprisonment. From the available information, the latest case of punishment for slander or insulting the dictator is related to Belarus, who cursed Lukashenko in the presence of police officers. Sentence: one year in prison.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
