Viktar Ivashkevich: “Main strategy and critical point is people’ gathering on the square”

Every candidate for presidency should disseminate information to Belarusians about the necessity to take to the streets on the day of elections.

It has been stated in the interview to charter97.org by the chairman of Minsk city branch of the Belarusian Popular Front Party Viktar Ivashkevich.

- Viktar, at the latest Sojm (meeting of the Council) of the Belarusian Popular Front party you declared support to the presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, thus refusing to work for the party candidature Ryhor Kostuseu. What was the reason for such a decision?

- I have been waiting long for the Belarusian Popular Front to take seriously the problem of the presidential candidate or would support another promising candidate, who would not agree for cooperation with Lukashenka’s regime, but would set it as his goal to gain a victory over this regime. But this year the leadership of the BPF party was mostly busy with infighting for formal power inside the party, which was not interesting for me. I hoped that it would come to an end, a real work would start, but this “rat race” continued.

Previously I also made Andrei Sannikov out of all oppositional candidates, his position towards the Lukashenka’s regime and the future of Belarus was the closest for me. When decent people were started to be excluded from the Belarusian Popular Front party, I said: it’s enough; we should be engaged in real struggle with the dictatorship. To my mind, only Sannikov’s team is not engaged in backstage intrigues. And at the Sojm I called upon everyone who has got tired from this infighting, who wants to be engaged in politics truly, who wants to do good to Belarus, stop participating in these political squabbles and join the campaign of Andrei Sannikov.

- By the way, why the best young people have been expelled from the party? The active, promising people who had been experiencing harsh repressions of the regime?

- Expelling of Franak Vyachorka and his team has been caused exactly by the fact that he is active, promising and in principle could qualify for leadership in the Belarusian Popular Front party after a while. It is the main thing which worries those who are engaged in infighting. And when they are asked what we should do with the regime, they are not interested in that at the moment.

- The latest moves of the Belarusian Popular Front party have disappointed many people. Some even say about the beginning of the end of the Front.

- I hope this is the beginning of the end of the Front in its present form. And I hope this is the beginning of the Front which must be an organization of the people who stand for independence, democracy and the European choice of Belarus. The BPF would restore its health, or a new association would emerge. I think that such an organization would set after the presidential campaign and as a result of it. I would like those people who are members of the BPF now, to make the backbone of this new political force. The organization which would perform the mission which has been performed by the Front in early 1990ies is to be created anyway.

- How many your party members are ready to work for the most promising presidential candidate?

- Half of the Front at the latest congress, where the leadership of the party was elected, voted against support of candidate Milinkevich, in the connection with the fact that his policy is the policy of cooperation with the regime. The general meeting of the members of Minsk city branch of the BPF party has also adopted such a decision by the great majority. That is why I think that a considerable part of those people, who do not want to support Milinkevich, nevertheless would not adopt the position of sitting at home, but would become subjects of the politics and would tangibly influence the situation in Belarus. These people can support Andrei Sannikov as a candidate who is close to them in their views.

- What is your evaluation of the fact that today every party tries to nominate its presidential candidate?

- Today such thing is the mode – to nominate candidates for bargaining. We would nominate a candidate, and thus we would enter the circle of “significant people” who discuss who could become a single candidate, and maybe the one who would be the strongest in fact, would invite others to his team. Such a policy could be acceptable as a preliminary process. The main thing is for these teams and candidates to want to reach a concrete agreement on concerted actions, aimed not against each other, but against the regime.

- And what concerted actions of the candidates should be?

- There is an objective reality: elections, in which Lukashenka would participate, are not elections. The process of voting won’t have any influence on the results. Lukashenka will announce the figures he would find necessary. The main thing is to inform people during the election campaign that Lukashenka’s regime wants to deceive them again.

During the second stage it is necessary to call upon people to gather on the square on the voting day in order to demand the honest election and honest vote count. People must put pressure on the authorities, to demand Lukashenka’s non-participation in the elections. So the main strategy of the elections, the key to everything, the critical point is gathering of people on the square. In this respect every candidate must make contribution to the agitation of people and informing about the necessity to take to the streets.