“Lukashenko can only be brave enough to fight with a woman, a housewife with two children, whose husband is held hostage by him.”
Excerpts from the interview with an unregistered candidate for the presidential election in Belarus, former Ambassador Extraordinary of the Republic of Belarus to the United States Valery Tsepkalo for Echo of Moscow of July 15, 2020
Alexander Plyushchev: Were you at the protests in Minsk yesterday (July 14 — ed. note)?
V.Tsepkalo: No, I did not go to the protests yesterday. As far as I understand, there were no protests as such.
A.P.: Wow! So this is not considered as protests now. Okay.
V.Ts.: No, this is not considered as protests. Actually, we still have the most important part ahead of us. Civic engagement will only increase, because right now people can see for themselves how the authorities are trying to set this election up. However, I think that this time they will not be able to do it. We will be able to record how they falsify elections, how they try to bypass the Constitution, bypass electoral legislation. I think that if everyone was vaguely aware of this before, this time everything will be obvious to everyone.
Elena Lyahovskaya: Valery, please tell me this. As far as I understand, Viktar Babaryka was denied (registration as a candidate — ed. note) the first. Could you already realize at this point that you were the next person to be denied?
V.Ts.: Certainly. This was the logic of the authorities: to remove all the main competitors. To remove Sergey Tikhanovsky and Viktar Babaryka in different ways, and then remove me. That is, the main contenders for the presidency of Belarus, who were the most popular, who, indeed, could have easily defeated Lukashenko. He removed them, leaving only the wife of Sergey Tikhanovsky, because her husband is now being held hostage. There were also threats against her children. He believes that he can deal with such a rival. What a man, what a hero! He removed three men, left one woman with her husband held hostage.
…
E.L.: In your opinion, how can they threaten you personally in case of your further attempts to obtain registration in the presidential elections, to appeal against the decision on non-registration and to achieve fair election. How can you be threatened?
V.Ts.: I don’t want to talk about it yet. For the time being, I would really like to concentrate on providing the tools for holding transparent election. We have already exposed the falsifications of our local election commissions. The Central Election Commission itself said that all the signatures that were submitted for me were valid. These signatures were put by real people by their own hands. We collected 220 thousand signatures, but submitted 165 thousand to the CEC. And the people who put their signatures turned out to be real people.
As for the formalities… I should say that the CEC rejected some of the submitted signatures on technicalities. However, we can challenge these formal grounds. We will file the claim with the Supreme Court, we will summon the members of the local election commissions, we will summon the so-called experts, who concluded that the date was put by more than one person. And let’s see how they will answer those questions, because even the expert evaluation, to which they refer, was carried out in absolute violation of all possible norms that exist in the legislation on expert evaluation.
…
A.P.: As you know, one of our politicians used to say that 7… or 8 years as a president can make a person go insane.
V.Ts.: That’s probably true. You know, after all, historically, if a person understands that he or she is limited in terms of time in power, then the person tries to achieve as much as possible. Just think, the Great Patriotic War was begun and ended within the period of 4 years; the economy destroyed by the war was also almost completely restored in 4 years. That is, an enormous amount can be done in 8 years. Even more can be done in 10 years. However, after 26 years, a person ceases to feel that he or she has to do anything at all.
Therefore, the problem is not really with Lukashenko, the problem is with the alternation of power, as after some time the person simply ceases to understand life. He stopped understanding life. How can you understand life if you look at it from the windows of your palaces and numerous residences, if you look out of the windows of your maybachs accompanied by a huge escort? What can such person know about life? And a politician is a person who must be trying to somehow implement the knowledge about life that he or she has accumulated as an ordinary citizen into the political, social and economic systems of the country.
…
E.L.: Valery, how do you assess Lukashenko’s real rating and your rating right now? I understand that this question might be very difficult to answer.
V.Ts.: It is very difficult to answer this question. The thing is — our rating, at least, the online rating of Tikhanovsky, Babaryka and Tsepkalo, was somewhere around 80%, some believe that it was even higher. But then, as the candidates began to leave one by one — first Tikhanovsky, then Babaryka, — it was clear that the electoral expectations were focused on me. Obviously, Lukashenko knows about this, and he made a decision, instructed the CEC not to register my signatures, despite the fact that they were recognized as valid, and the CEC itself said that these are indeed people who signed for my registration.
This was just a political decision. This way he eliminates the candidates, he wants to remain, perhaps, alone or with one or two “spoilers”, people who have little electoral chances. I’m not even saying that those people are “spoilers”. I’m just talking objectively about the fact that they are little-known people in our country and have little chances [to win]. Maybe in the next political cycle they will be better known.
As for Lukashenko’s real rating, I don’t believe it’s higher than 8%.
…
А.P.: Tell me, please — maybe this question will not be pleasant to hear, the question itself is not unpleasant — why Babaryka and Tikhanovsky were imprisoned, but you are not, what do you think?
V.Ts.: Well, the authorities dealt with us in different ways. Why unpleasant? It’s okay. Tikhanovsky was not allowed [to be registered]. They threw some “prostitute” (police officer — ed. note) to him, whom he pushed away and got detained because of it. They found money in Babaryka’s bank. Indeed, what could one find in the bank other than money? And suddenly the authorities became concerned with the interests of Gazprom, that they allegedly had affiliated structures, although in fact he did not take part in these structures in any way. Thus, he was isolated.
With me, they just made up some kind of compromising material, made some kind of videos, kind of dirty trick, that is, they tried to compromise me. But when they saw that it simply did not work out, they decided not to register me. By the way, Babaryka also collected 400 thousand signatures. And there is a case against him, but he is not a convict, that is, in accordance with Belarusian legislation, if you are not a convict, then you can take part in a political campaign. It means that he was also removed illegally.
In general, I’d like to point out once again, Lukashenko can only be brave enough to fight with a woman, a housewife with two children, whose husband is held hostage by him.
…
А.P.: I would like to talk a little more about the overall mood of the security and law enforcement agencies. On the one hand, we see people being beaten, grabbed by some people in civilian clothes, with absolutely brutal faces, doing all this. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, in your Telegram channels, in any case, I saw, at least occasionally, that allegedly somewhere the police is refusing, or, shall we say, not in a great hurry to carry out arrest orders. During the protests people chant: “The police is with the people!”, obviously, implying this lack of eagerness. What can you say about this, what are the sentiments there, are they really 100% dogs of the regime now?
V.Ts.: I don’t think this is the case. The fact is that everywhere on the facades of their academies, schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the following is written: “People, fatherland, law.” They don’t have the word “Lukashenko” there. And therefore, our task now is to show, among other things, to the police, who is in fact a violator of the law. That is, we must show them that they serve, first of all, the Belarusian people, as they say in their slogans, and they serve the law. They have nothing written there about the Lukashenko family, they have nothing written there about the fact that they should serve someone individually. And I just think that a large number of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a large number of people in uniform, they still possess honour, dignity, and conscience.
This is a translation of the article previously published on Echo of Moscow on the 15th of July, 2020.
