Mikalaj Statkevich: We Must Attack Authorities During “Parliamentary Campaign”

Meanwhile, after the elections, it is necessary to hold the nation-wide protest action.

Former political prisoner Mikalaj Statkevich has told the website palitviazni.info about the upcoming ‘parliamentary campaign”, the opposition’s participation in it and the “most reasonable” option of this participation.

“We need to politicize the campaign as much as we can,” – the politician notes. – Actually, we must attack the authorities and show the people where they had led the country in the latest years.”

”Now there are consultations going on in the democratic forces circles, – the politician tells. – They are going on at several directions. There exists a sort of a “soft union”, which is in fact a discussion ground. This remains a consultative session of democratic organizations, the decisions of which are not obligatory for execution. Still, nevertheless, we have managed to adopt a plan for mutual coordination of the actions during the parliamentary campaign. This plan remains rather mild, but we have coordinated such moments as the elections observation, and common reaction in case there are falsifications. The document should be finally inked on June 21.

Mikalaj Statkevich also has a vision how the opposition can take most advantages of the upcoming electoral campaign.

”There is a need for more limited group consultations, and they are being held between the European-oriented Belarusian democratic organizations , – Statkevich says. – As for our suggestions, they look clear. We need to secure the common list of candidates firsthand. Surely we cannot provide the perfect situation (one candidate from the authorities per one candidate from the democratic forces), as there will be representatives of various parties and forces. Nevertheless, we needed to form the common list to demonstrate the society that we had power, too. This was the way we could gather around them their own democratic electorate and force the authorities to use more falsifications. If we fail to do this, many candidates will just spread the people’s votes.

Alongside with that, the politician believes they should work on the message to the voters:

”The message won’t be effective if the candidate speaks about his dear self, telling people they should vote for him obligatory. People feel skeptical about such things. Moreover, all the power is concentrated in the Red House, and the “parliament” decides on nothing actually. Therefore, we need to just politicize this campaign as much as we can. We must attack the authorities and show the people where they had led the country in the latest years. We should tell this especially in the regions, as there is a huge difference between the capital and the province. Many people in the regions feel strongly discontent.

But the most important thing, according to Statkevich, is to finish the “parliamentary campaign” decently.

”We can hold the whole campaign well, but then the authorities give us some 5% of votes and wave goodbye, – the former political prisoner says. – If we fail to provide a decent reaction to this, the people won’t respect us anymore. Someone may say some candidate’s program wasn’t good that’s why the people didn’t vote for the opposition representative. So, there are different ways to finish the campaign. For example, to throw leaflets explaining why the results are like this into every voter’s mailbox. However, usually no one has strength or money to do this. Therefore, it would probably be worth it to hold a nation-wide action so that the people would know that the candidates whose victory was stolen from them feel outraged and come out to protest.”

Mikalaj Statkevich underlines that the above three components would be effective enough during the campaign.