Reaction to protests: Lukashenka demands ‘order’, threatens ‘criminal gangs’


During Monday’s meeting with KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchyk, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka promised to prevent destabilisation amid the election campaign.

Lukashenka called on people not to compare what is happening in Belarus to the revolutions in Armenia or Ukraine. According to him, Belarus does not have its own Nicol Pashinyan or Volodymyr Zelensky, because the two politicians are first and foremost patriots.

“And certain persons want to sell for a penny everything that was created here [in Belarus] not only by President Lukashenka, not only by the authorities. It was created by the nation,” he said.

No one bars Belarusians from openly expressing their views, but this should be done only in ‘special places designated in Minsk and other cities for people to speak up and discuss things’.

“It’s up to people to decide if they want to go and discuss certain things. If they want to do it in their kitchens, it’s up to them. There should be order in the country. We must prevent various criminal gangs from wandering around the country with rolled up sleeves: God forbid, people might think that the Gestapo has returned, that the war has started. We must prevent that. I will not tolerate that. I have already told the military that I will fight against them [such criminal gangs] alone if necessary. But we have enough military personnel who can protect the country,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes Lukashenka.

The Belarusian leader failed to specify whom he considers ‘gangs’. But there is every likelihood that he had in mind the participants in Sunday’s pre-election pickets during which Belarusians signed for Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s nomination for presidency.

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This year’s presidential campaign is indicative of the people’s fatigue with the 26-year rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On Sunday, thousands of people throughout the country lined up to put their signatures for any of his rivals. Especially large queues formed after blogger Syarhei Tsikhanouski, a trustee and husband of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had been detained in Hrodna on May, 29.

The Belarusian Central Election Commission (CEC) have registered 15 of 55 initiative groups. It means that over a dozen wannabe got the green light for collecting signatures to be nominated for the 2020 presidential run.

To officially become a presidential candidate, each of them will have to collect 100,000 signatures until June, 19. The names of the candidates will be announced in mid July, and the election will be held on August, 9.

On May 31, over 30 persons, including members of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s initiative group and civil activists, were detained or prevented from taking part in pre-election pickets, the human rights centre Viasna reports. Notably, a wannabe presidential candidate does not have to get permission from the authorities for holding such a picket.

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