“I am a profitable president for you, remember. The beneficial thing is that I don’t hold on to power. If anyone thinks otherwise, he’s a complete fool. I don’t think about how to preserve it. I’ve already had enough of it,” said Lukashenko, who has not left the post of head of state since 1994, and pointed to his throat.
At the same time, he noted that he does not look at this from his position.
“Although this morning I thought about this thesis, and I don’t throw myself at power. This is what the people handed me. They said: come on, you govern, be responsible for the country, and therefore for us there,” he explained.
After that, he again returned to the statement that he was not interested in power, and tried to prove this by saying that he was not afraid to criticize Belarusians.
“If the majority of the people don’t like it, there will be elections soon, you’ll vote and elect a new president. I’m not afraid of that. This is really true, and this is a benefit for our people,” Lukashenko summed up.
Context
“Nowhere in the world are there open, fair elections like in Belarus, we have this holiday,” Lukashenko said earlier, whose last inauguration took place in secret and after mass protests against fraud in the 2020 elections. According to official data, he won with the supposed support of 80.1% of voters. Oppositionist Svetlana Tikhanovskaya took second place with 10.1% of the votes. At the same time, alternative exit polls showed the opposite picture – a confident victory for Tikhanovskaya.
In August 2024, Lukashenko said that Belarusians “must get used to the fact that the president will be different” because “anything can happen.”
In January 2025, the European Union and Ukraine announced that today in Belarus there are no basic conditions for holding fair and transparent elections in accordance with OSCE standards.
On the day of the presidential elections, January 26, 2025, Lukashenko stated that he was “violet” whether the West would recognize the elections in Belarus.
On January 27, the Central Election Commission of Belarus announced Lukashenko’s seventh victory in the presidential elections.
