Andrei Sannikov: “Looks like Lukashenka doesn’t hope to endure to the end of this year”

“It is strange that three years before the presidential election Lukashenka is speaking about some further new terms. It looks like he does not expect to endure till the end of this year at least,” told the international coordinator of the Cahrter’97 Andrei Sannikov, a member of the organizing committee of the civil campaign “European Belarus”, commenting on statements of Lukashenka to run for another presidential term.

According to Andrei Sannikov, such statements of the Belarusian ruler are not addressed to the nation or opposition: “Lukashenka’s words are in no way addressed to the people of Belarus, who are deprived of allowances and social security system, of chances to receive education and decent medical assistance. His words are neither addressed to the opposition which he fears to met, but fights with the help of truncheons of mercenaries. His words are addressed firstly to officials who cannot fail to understand that the situation is an impasse, and won’t demonstrate bygone devotedness”.

One of the leaders of “European Belarus” is convinced that Lukashenka won’t have a new presidential term.

“There won’t be a new term as the head of the state for Lukashenka. He is closing his eyes to the situation in Belarus and around it carefully. We are bordering on the European Union. Over the years of Lukashenka’s rule the EU has expanded almost twice, most of our neighbours have joined the EU as well, and Ukraine has stated its strategic intention to join the EU. And Lukashenka with the help of the Kremlin and Hugo Chavez plans to keep Belarus back in the last century.

An active preparation of the country for sale-out is taking place. But such a sell-out under a dictatorship will be beneficial to some officials and won’t improve well-being of the nation of Belarus in any way. So the tricky wordplay and attempts to look for means to support the regime with the help of friends-dictators who are as unstable, is to lead Lukashenka and his entourage to a dangerous situation. Black-ink operations inevitably cause dirty showdown,” the international coordinator of the Charter’97 believes.

The politician has also commented on the statement of the chair of the central Election Committee Lidziya Yarmoshyna, who refused to consider proposals of the opposition on democratization of the electoral process in autumn this year.

“Simultaneously with Lukashenka Lidziya Yarmoshyna announced plans of the regime not to allow a transparent vote in Belarus. That is, a variant of changing the situation is not even considered by the regime, and they do not want to take part in any reforms, either political or economic. The regime had a chance to settle for a step-by-step evolution, to which the opposition agreed as well. But it looks like that chance has been missed completely. No matter what manipulations would be performed by the CEC and other state officials engaged in rigging election results, it won’t help the economy of the country and it won’t deceive Europe. There are clearly formulated conditions of the European Union, under which they can recognize the vote, so any other attempts to pretend an election process is taking place are to lead nowhere,” Andrei Sannikov said.