Yury Khashchavatski: We Must Return Free And Fair Elections

Filmmaker harshly criticized the government in his speech on BT.

The well-known filmmaker, the candidate for deputy from the United Civil Party Yury Khashchavatski made a speech on the TV-channel “Belarus-3”.

Khashchavatski listed a number of problems which, according to him, Belarusians are discussing every day. These are: rising prices, heavy expenses on maintenance of officials, lack of protection against the “lawlessness of the cops”, poor quality of free medicine, high cost of education.

– You talk about it, but you do nothing to change it, – addressed he the voters. –You have done nothing in 1996, when the parliament was destroyed, in 1999, when the well-known politicians began to disappear, in the early 2000s, when Lukashenka cheated to arrogated to himself the right to be elected for term of life, in 2010, when almost all of the presidential candidates were jailed. And then you say that we have a weak opposition. It is not the opposition that is weak, – you are weak. It's time to become strong and to get your self-respect back. We must return the free and fair elections that were stolen from us, – the candidate concluded.

Let us remind that the opposition candidates were urged to withdraw from the “parliamentary elections” on the eve of the “voting”, and a new action to demand free elections is planned in Minsk on September 12.

BT demanded to delete Yury Khashchavatski’s statement from YouTube. Charter97.org cites the full text of the statement:

– 20 years passed since I made a satirical film about Aliaksandr Lukashenka “An Ordinary President.” Perhaps those, who have seen the film, remember the young man saying prophetic words close to the end: “Life in our country is like a fairy tale: the further, the worse.” In that 1996, in violation of the law, in violation of the Constitution, the Belarusian parliament was dissolved and a decoration was set instead. So-called “deputies” were appointed in the “house of representatives,” whose only activity was to vote unanimously for any legislation, lowered from above.

Since then, deputies have not been elected, but appointed. How does this happen? It is very simple: with the help of falsification, deceit and fraud. I saw this first hand. Four years ago, I was a candidate and recorded my statement in this very studio. I recorded my speech and debates, but neither one was shown on air. And it happened not only to me, but to dozens of other candidates from the United Civil Party, too.

It was not just a violation, it was already a criminal affair. A deliberate obstruction of the citizens’ right to elect their representatives. The elections had to be annulled by law at least in a dozen of these districts. And what do you think happened? Absolutely nothing. As soon as there is neither a parliament in our country, nor independent judiciary.

We have been living under an autocratic regime for 20 years. What has it lead to? Here I have a box of ordinary Belarusian matches in my pocket. If there are firemen in the studio, they can relax. They do not catch fire. You can strike it a couple of times – and it won’t catch fire. The spunk turns into flitters. It was an accident (a match caught fire on the second try), every woman knows about it. This is our Belarusian miracle. And our whole economy, our industry are like this box – exist only for appearance, being in fact painted scrap metal. It overslips even in Lukashenka’s speeches – the author of this “miracle.”

Here is what he said in Hrodna a few days ago: “I am concerned that such a strong region as Hrodna region failed to meet five out of eight key parameters in in the first half of the year. Among the serious faults is a decrease in real wages, an increase in the number of loss-making companies and foreign debts.”

Why is that bad? Why are the prices in the stores growing at such breakneck speed? Why is the number of the President’s residences and the cost of maintaining the army of officials increasing at such breakneck speed? Why is each of you defenseless against cops’ lawlessness? Why does our free medicine make you feel sad and now it’s just an imitation of medicine? Why is our children's education so expensive?

I am sure that you think about it every day at least once. But you do not do anything to change all that. You did not do anything in 1996, when the parliament was destroyed, you did not do anything in 1999 when prominent politicians started to disappear, you did not do anything in the early 2000s, when Lukashenka jockeyed out the right to be elected for life, you did not do anything when in 2010 almost all of the presidential candidates were put in prison. And then you say that we have a weak opposition? It is not the opposition, who is weak – it is you, my dear fellows, who are weak. It's time to become strong, it's time to learn how to support each other, it's time to return dignity. And it is necessary to start with getting back the stolen free and fair elections. And we know, what to do next. Here’s the UCP’s “One Million New Jobs” program. Believe me, we’ll get them! Good luck and good future.