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Andrei Sannikov: If Ukraine withstands, Belarus will have future

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Andrei Sannikov: If Ukraine withstands, Belarus will have future

The support from the US and the EU is a guarantee for solving the Ukrainian crisis.

Andrei Sannikov, a presidential candidate in the 2010 election and leader of the European Belarus civil campaign, said it in an interview with Radio Racyja.

The politician thinks the events in Ukraine can have a great impact on Belarus. Andrei Sannikov is confident in the strength of Europe and the US, whose support to Ukraine guarantees the crisis will be solved.

– We were winning in 2010. In fact, the country would have had new authorities if we had had transparent elections and vote counting procedures. But the fact that Belarus has the dictatorship, the strict dictatorship, rules out the possibility that the authorities will carry out transparent elections. We see that changes in history can be held in different ways. I am confident Belarus will see changes. When? Maybe, this year. Maybe, in a couple of years. But they will happen soon.

– What is the best scenario for the opposition for the next election, in your opinion? Boycotting the election, as many propose? Or running in the election?

– I can say for sure what scenario the authorities will be implementing. The scenario of the full control of the entire election process and candidates. The authorities were scared in 2010, when they were not able to fully control the election process. People united, perhaps, for the first time in the dictatorship period. As for the question what we should do, the local election has shown that people do not want to participate in it.

– Do you think the election is a chance to talk to voters and convey a message to them?

– Everything will be under control this time.

– The election is important even if few people want to participate. People are waiting for leaders.

– You see, even opposition politicians in Belarus say there will be no post-election protests. People are scared. It illustrates the brutality of the regime. No one risks to call on people to protest now. Maybe someone does it on purpose to show that rallies are not a good scenario for Belarus. But this is the right scenario. If there are no channels of information and communication between society and the regime, squares and streets are the only places people have. Secondly, there won't be any elections, because there are no changes in electoral commissions, so we cannot hope for an honest vote counting procedure. We can carry out the campaign “For Free Elections without Lukashenka”.

The regime denied Belarus's national identity. The matter is that the state itself is under threat now. Only democratic changes in Belarus can save the state.

– Who will do it? Society always needs leaders. At least, some organisations.

– The year 2010 is a landmark for me. Ideas appeared when people became active and began to compete. There's a strange debate that we should have a “common” candidate to entrust our future to. It then occurs that the “common” candidates appears to be not the one we expected. The matter is that we shouldn't deceive ourselves by saying: “Maybe, I will be able to live in this regime. Maybe, I will settle it somehow, do other sorts of analytics and say Lukashenka protects interests of the state.” He does not protect interests of the state. He protects interests of the regime. He is ready for everything, even to surrender the independence.

– Let's turn to international politics. You see what is going on in Ukraine. What is the West doing? What Belarus can expect from European politicians?

– I hope and all of us hope that Ukraine will have strong support from Europe and the United States. We must preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We are struggling for the values on which Europe is based. If Ukraine supports these values, if Ukraine is able to withstand, if it actually receives the support it should receive, Belarus will have the future.

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