English

Lukashenka advises voters to size up his opponents

Alyaksandr Lukashenka told a handpicked group of local residents in Mahilyow on Saturday that voters should look closely at all presidential hopefuls.

“There are many of those who want to rule, but you should take an attentive look at them and find out what they have done to date,” the Belarusian leader said, according to the government’s news agency BelTA.

Mr. Lukashenka alleged that one of the hopefuls had said that in his first year as president, he would give up Belarus’ oil pipelines and refineries to Russia. “It shocks and hurts me to read this stuff,” Mr. Lukashenka said. “These are our national assets. How can they be given up? Whom did you ask for permission?”

Mr. Lukashenka was apparently speaking about Uladzimir Nyaklyayew, leader of the “Tell the Truth!” campaign, who told reporters in late October that Belarus' oil pipelines and refineries could be sold to Russian companies if he was elected president.

"We must simply decide what Russian capital should do here. For me, there's a clear answer to this question. Russian capital should buy here what in fact depends on Russia anyway. And what is needed by no one but Russia," Mr. Nyaklyayew said.

He stressed that Belarus had no money to modernize its old oil pipelines. "To my mind, they can be needed in the West only by some profiteer who would buy them and resell them to Russia," he said.

"The oil refineries rely on Russian crude. If Russian companies become their owners, it will be easier to hold talks with them, easier to settle problems that are not settled today," Mr. Nyaklyayew said.

Mr. Lukashenka went on to say, “It is you who should sort everything out and make a correct choice. Our happiness is in our hands. If we are one and think about the country and our children, we’ll manage to do something. If we fail, nothing can be done by any government for us. We’ve achieved something over these years. One shouldn’t say that it was Lukashenka who did that. Your support saved the country. We created it thanks to your support. The most important thing now is not to lose it.”

“No one can make Belarus collapse. Neither can Russia, Ukraine, the European Union nor America. We are not as we were. It’s impossible to artificially make us collapse unless we ourselves are the cause of the collapse,” Mr. Lukashenka said.

He claimed that he did not think about the forthcoming presidential election. “Speaking honestly, I don’t even think about the election,” he said. “But in Minsk, you will sooner or later get drawn into the matter of the election. In order to get myself away from it, I go to people, to a field or a village to talk to people. That’s why I haven’t yet developed this pre-election fever. I tell [local] officials, ‘This election is not my business. It’s your business, as you will be assessed in your area.’”