See the recording. Brutal clashes between the Belarusian police and the protesters. Residents’ strikes after the rigged presidential elections continue:
Jacek Gądek: Who do Belarusians believe?
Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy: There is no such one person now, but if anything, it is mostly Swiatłanie Cichanouska, for whom they voted en masse in the presidential election.
Why?
Maybe because she never lied to them. She always stressed that she was one of them, an ordinary woman, and that she was never suitable for politics. Cichanouska has great social respect. People don’t think she can rule the country, but neither did she claim that she could. She did say that she would set up a kind of temporary office that would help her. She just wanted to take power temporarily – pending new elections. She said it directly to Belarusians, so her countrymen have reasons to trust her.
And state television?
They certainly don’t believe the state media. Judging by the quite numerous demonstrations that took place in front of the television building, during which it was chanted “stop lying!”, No one believes government television anymore. Even a large part of the employees of this television refused to work. The strike did not stop broadcasting for a long time, because the authorities managed to get the situation under control. Employees of the state-owned TV station who led the protest say (although I have not verified it) that specialists have been brought from Russia to replace them.
Does anyone believe Aleksander Lukashenka?
Such people will probably still find themselves, but at the moment it is not uncommon even in the ranks of supporters of power to believe that he has detached from reality.
What was the influence of state television throughout the years of Lukashenka’s rule? After all, it reaches all corners of Belarus.
Descending. Social processes, the end of which we are seeing now, do not take place suddenly, they only build up over the years, but finally there is a turning point – right now. People’s dissatisfaction builds up for years until they finally explode. The process itself cannot be seen, but the explosion does.
Hardly anyone has watched state television for years, because first of all there is nothing interesting in it. And secondly, this television is lying every day. It may be hard to imagine, but the journals began by showing for seven minutes how Lukashenka was harvesting vegetables or how the harvest was going. Lukashenka knows everything, so he talks about grain widely. All this had become so grotesque that people stopped watching state TV.
What range does Belsat TV have?
We stick to the strategy of a diversified way of reaching viewers. It is an absolute foundation for us – a principle that has proven itself in every way recently. We broadcast via satellite, but at the same time we also run a website that the Belarusian authorities have now blocked. At the same time, we are very much present in social networks. It is actually a separate department for us. When we noticed that the authorities are blocking the site and it is only available via VPN, we started to provide our information in the Telegram application, which is very popular in Belarus.
And how many people in Belarus watch Belsat TV?
One of our broadcasts protests on YouTube, it has well exceeded a million viewers. We estimate that there are 250-300 thousand. satellite TV users who watch us relatively constantly. In addition, the portal and social networks. And broadcasting in SMART technology. When the Internet was turned off, people called those who had Belsat, because only we were able to say what was really happening in the country. Even before the protests, after several surveys, we estimated that our audience totaled about 750,000. people, which is a significant number, because Belarus has nine and a half million people – including children and the elderly.
Where are you broadcasting from?
Now we are forced to broadcast from a temporary studio – a modest room.
Why, when the goal is so obviously right?
I am not able to fully answer this question. The fact is that our three-year efforts and requests to create normal working conditions for Belsat have not worked. It is particularly sad that even the presidential election failed to do so. Many times in talks also with the authorities TVP I emphasized that these elections were terribly important, but it was like calling in the wilderness.
People in Poland do not know what is happening just abroad. For three months now, I have been walking and telling whomever I can that important things will happen in Belarus that cannot be explained solely by Russian provocations. Nobody is able to provoke such a mass of citizens to take to the streets – there must be some reason and some dynamics, as well as the specificity of such mass moods. Few, however, believed me, because we got used to thinking that Belarusians are a nation that always chooses Lukashenka.
Is anyone able to predict how the situation in Belarus will develop?
It is still a great unknown. The wave of protests has waned at the moment. I do not know myself whether these demonstrations will continue, even on a smaller scale, or whether the strikes will continue and develop, because this is a crucial issue for the strength of the protest. But will it all fall apart over the bones?
One thing I am sure of: Lukashenka’s time is running out. As I said from the beginning – maybe not yet exactly at this point, but it is politically over now. Russia and world leaders know this perfectly well. The only question that remains is the cost to the people and how long will this dying of his power last.
Is there any breach in the structures of the Belarusian state that would give hope that Lukashenka’s rule will end soon?
Paweł Latuszka broke away – he is a person from the periphery of power, but still. He is the former Belarusian ambassador to Poland, former minister of culture, and then director of the National Academic Theater of Belarus. However, there is no major breach in the state’s power structures so far.
Is there a risk of “brotherly help” from Russia?
Little. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said they had no intention of entering Belarus now. There are several reasons for this. Above all, the international cost for Russia would be huge. Internal costs similarly, because by attacking Ukraine, one could say that they were “Banderites”, and Belarusians did what they did wrong to suddenly introduce army? Moreover, Belarusians are relatively the most pro-Russian nationality in the region, so making them hate Russians after the invasion is not a good idea.
Cichanouska had the slogan “country to live” in the elections. Is Belarus, compared to Russia and Ukraine, a good country to live in after all, or has the standard of living decreased in recent years?
As you can see, Belarusians voted for an ordinary woman because they wanted to finally have a country to live in. Because living there is extremely hard. The dictatorship has completely monopolized. The willful, omnipotent bureaucracy and the apparatus of violence cast a shadow over virtually every sphere of life. And it’s not just a full porch, although the economic situation has deteriorated a lot recently, it’s about a country to live in – Belarusians still do not have such.
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