Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko admitted in an interview that he may have been in power a little too long, but he says he is the only one who can now protect the country. Meanwhile, opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava is detained at the Belarusian border with Ukraine, where she is said to have torn up her passport.
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“ Yes, maybe I have served a little too long ” in the presidency, said Lukashenko, quoted by the Russian state press agency Tass. “But yes, only I can protect the Belarusians now.”
Despite the wave of protests against his rule, Lukashenko will not resign, he stressed on Tuesday. Lukashenko said his supporters will be attacked if he leaves.
The Belarusian president does not rule out early elections, but he believes they can only come about after a constitutional reform. “We are ready to hold a constitutional reform, and after that I will not rule out an early presidential election,” Lukashenko said, according to Russian state media.
He also stated that he was not interested in talking to the Belarusian Coordination Council. That’s not an opposition. Everything she proposes is a disaster for Belarus and the Belarusian people. ‘
Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and claimed victory in the controversial August 9 presidential election. He is said to have received 80.10 percent of the vote, while his challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya only got 10.12 percent. According to the opposition, there was large-scale fraud at the polls. Since the elections, there has been a massive manifestation against the president in Belarus.
Protest leader ‘did not leave voluntarily’
Belarusian protest leader Maria Kalesnikava has torn up her passport to prevent her from being deported to Ukraine. This is reported by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, on the authority of an anonymous source.
The 38-year-old Kolesnikova would be in the center of Minsk on Monday were picked up by masked men and taken away in a minibus. On Tuesday, Belarusian border guards stated that she had been arrested as she tried to cross the border into Ukraine. The Opposition Coordination Council said Kalesnikava did not want to leave Belarus voluntarily.
“This was not a voluntary departure, this was a forced expulsion,” Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerasjenko also stated on Facebook. “Maria Kolesnikova could not be deported from Belarus because this brave woman took steps to avoid being deported across the border.”
According to the Belarusian border authority, Kalesnikava wanted to leave the country and arrived at the border post by car, which also included opposition representatives Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov. The Ukrainian Border Guard confirmed that the latter two are now in Ukraine. According to Ukrainian Deputy Minister Gerashenko, the Belarusian authorities intended to give the appearance that Kalesnikava, Rodnenkov and Kravtsov were abandoning their supporters.
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