6 ms·
Belarus president: “Until you kill me, there will be no other elections”
- vanusa 6y agoFamous last words
- ClikeX 6y ago"What are you gonna do, stab me?" - Julius Ceasar
- phone8675309 6y agoWell now it would be rude to not try. In the spirit of "those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable," and all.
- mc32 6y agoIt looks like he is looking for an excuse to invite non NATO troops into his country. That non-NATO entity has already signaled it’s ready to send troops if asked.[1] When your dictatorship is in trouble, who’re you gonna call? Right now the answer lies west of the Ural Mountains. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/belarus-president-putin-ready-ensure-security-200815183314584.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/belarus-president-put...
- treis 6y agoSeems like Ukraine 2, electric boogaloo.
- runawaybottle 6y agoA total repeat of Syria. Russia backed Assad, just need this guy to start gassing his people too.
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoI lived in Belarus between 1989 and 1999, I still have the Belarusian passport and I vote. Syria is different. The population of Belarus is fairly uniform, mostly urban and well educated. They are unbelievably peaceful. Just look at the pictures of the protests. No car was burned, no window smashed in 8 days by the protesters. The only people damaging property, beating and killing others were riot police and special forces, and they were bred in the spirit of violence for years. I am still afraid that once peaceful crowds learn the true fate of those missing, they will storm the prisons with bare hands and die by hundreds.
- ashtonkem 6y agoYou can only push a population so far before they rationally decide that it’s now “do or die” and mean that literally.
- phone8675309 6y ago> When your dictatorship is in trouble, who’re you gonna call? Right now the answer lies west of the Ural Mountains. Let's not pretend that West of the Ural Mountains has a monopoly on supporting repressive dictators. There's a group in power east of the Mississippi that has a long history of doing so as well. Before anyone tries to say this is a tu quoque - look at your life and the decisions that you've made in it to say that supporting even a single repressive dictatorship is okay.
- smsm42 6y agoThat would be pretty much the end of his dictatorship - you can't be a dictator where you are 100% dependent on somebody else's troops. He could still be a pro-forma ruler but everybody would know he's just a sock puppet now. It would be de-facto Anschluss. Which Putin has been dreaming about for ages, so he's of course more than willing.
- raxxorrax 6y agoHe is smart enough to know that western powers would never intervene. Putin actually profits from a weak Lukashenko because he can fortify the position of Russia in Belarus, which still is a pretty bad dictatorship, worse than Russia itself as a "Soviet Socialist Republic". Putin knows that Lukashenko pretty much has to do everything he asks for. I think Lukashenko wants to provoke here to either legitimize his crackdown or wants Russia getting involved in a war against "terrorism".
- Bootwizard 6y agoI feel like the US isn't far from this if Trump gets reelected in November
- mateo411 6y agoWell, he's not wrong.
- shmerl 6y agoIs anyone surprised? It's a case for a psychiatrist. The recent speech of this jerk is complete demagoguery which also shows how scared he is. And he is not a president anymore, even if he calls himself such.
- onyva 6y agoMind you the USA has a sitting president that didn’t win the election by way of a popular vote. More so it’s believed he cheated, though we know that everything that led to the elections was wrong from an ethical point of view. It’s very hard to get rid of these people once they take control of a country’s institutes and dismantle them one by one.
- smsm42 6y agoNone of the US presidents every won the election "by way of popular vote", because popular vote is not the way US presidential election is won. It's like complaining that a team who made the most goals won the soccer match instead of the team that run the fastest and has the prettiest shirts, how unfair that is especially that scoring the goal is completely pointless anyway. Those are the rules. Any rules have people that think they could win if only the rules were different - but they aren't, so every US president is elected according to the rules for US presidential elections, not some other imaginary rules. Time to stop whining about it. If you want to change the rules - there's constitutional amendment procedure, go after it, good luck. Until you're done and the rules are changed, don't whine about somebody winning by the rules that are in play at the time.
- jaywalk 6y agoUSA does not elect the President by way of a popular vote, so your point is irrelevant from the start. Also, no serious person believes he cheated.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThat seems like a very unwise thing to say during mass protests. Edit: he’s also giving up all pretense of legitimate, democratic rule, which is interesting. I guess with the mass protests the “we won 80% of the vote” lie finally no longer held any water.
- 52-6F-62 6y agoWording it like a challenge probably means he hopes there will be attempts. If we're to take any of this at near-face value, then it seems like he would love a reason to call in help from places he's claimed have offered. I definitely feel for the people of Belarus right now.
- elmo2you 6y agoYou are correct, sir. Although it might also just be for using his own powers and not per se foreign ones. In most systems like these, any form of violence (by citizens) is used as an excuse to respond with (disproportional) repressive violence. Many citizens know this, and many have learned it the hard way. So they try to disrupt and disable the system trough non-violent means, which is truly is terrifying for any totalitarian regime. Often such regimes will then resort to brazenly taunting the people and hoping at least someone will bite (given them the excuse they need). They may also just stage violence or an assassination attempt, just to get their way and use the only tool they know: control through (the threat of) violence. In fact, ironically, that might also be a rather fitting approximation to characterize the (actual) way the USA conducts its foreign policy towards many countries, particularly China and above all Russia. But that's another story.
- xvf22 6y agoGiven he's called in Putin to provide security I'm guessing he wants people to try?
- rsynnott 6y agoIt's not clear that Russia will want to get involved beyond some sort of symbolic effort. They gave a fairly non-answer answer to Lukashenko's request for aid.
- nostromo 6y agoThe headline makes it seem like he's saying there will be no more elections ever. But in context he's saying there will not be a do-over election.
- jayrot 6y agoWhen the dude has been in power for 26 years, that's somewhat of a distinction without a difference.
- nostromo 6y agoThat's an absurd take. Lots of politicians have long tenures because they've won re-election. That is not the same as suspending elections.
- jayrot 6y ago> Lots of politicians have long tenures because they've won re-election. Like Kim Jong-un? Who wins every re-election with 100% of the vote?
- nostromo 6y agoWhy not Chuck Schumer, who has been winning elections for 40 years without a loss? Clearly one should care about the fairness of the election process, not that someone wins lots of elections. To say that winning multiple elections is the same as ending democracy is, as I said, an absurd take.
- happytoexplain 6y agoWinning every election is really not something that can be taken at face value. If those elections are being won unfairly, or if the will of the people is to institute a term limit, then yes, they are effectively suspending the changing of leadership, which is the same as what a person means when they say "suspending elections". I also don't appreciate immediately jumping to calling a differing opinion "absurd".
- deleted 6y ago
- gowld 6y agoContradictory quotes have been attributed: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election/im-not-a-saint-lukashenko-offers-to-hand-over-power-after-referendum-idUSKCN25D0IJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election/im-not-a... I don't know what language he originally spoke in. Either he has difficulty with English, or he was mistranslated. > “We’ve held elections,” he said. “Until you’ve killed me there won’t be any new elections.” > “We’ll put the changes to a referendum, and I’ll hand over my constitutional powers. But not under pressure or because of the street,” Lukashenko said, in remarks quoted by the official Belta news agency. > “Yes, I’m not a saint. You know my harsh side. I’m not eternal. But if you drag down the first president you’ll drag down neighbouring countries and all the rest.” > He also said people could hold parliamentary and presidential elections after the referendum if that was what they wanted.
- callmekit 6y agoHe spoke Russian, here is the clip: https://censor.net.ua/en/news/3214153/until_you_kill_me_there_will_be_no_other_elections_lukashenko_video https://censor.net.ua/en/news/3214153/until_you_kill_me_ther... I'm a native Russian speaker. He said something like "We held the elections. Until you kill me, there will be no different elections.", meaning the elections will not be cancelled (this also follows from the previous context in the video).
- bitchazzho 6y agoLikely both. For example, “Until you’ve killed me..." is "Russian" speak for "over my dead body".
- komradeKow 6y agoWhy is this political stuff showing up on HN?
- trash_cat 6y agoI feel like he is digging his own grave. After social media and the twitter revolution, it's not something I would say in where mass protests are already under way. Dude is way to divorced from reality. Just look how many revolutions and mass protests we had over the last 10 years. Lukashenko will need to go full on Assad if he wants to stay in place. Not going to happen.
- dylan604 6y agoI feel like the quote truncated the last part "I triple dog dare you"
- slg 6y agoThis headline highlights a huge problem with modern journalism. Their bias towards civility and appearing unbiased means they often refuse to call a spade a spade. When a guy says you have to kill him to get another election, he should lose the respect and legitimacy that comes with the title of "president". At the very least they should call him the head of state and not lend his "election" legitimacy by referring to him with a title defined by being an elective office.
- rsynnott 6y agoI'm not sure that people will take what he's hoping from that...
- PedroBatista 6y agoBig words are easy when his puppet master "guaranteed" him total support..
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoAre you talking about Trump?
- rubyn00bie 6y agoSeems pretty spot on how to history goes down. My history of US economics professor, used to love saying something akin to: "The only thing that history tells us for sure, is if you leave people with nothing, one day, the people will come and remove your head from your body." I'm not quite sure why he'd so willfully encourage it unless he's burnt out or has a suicide wish.
- sys_64738 6y agoSheer numbers are what overthrows regimes. This is why those in power try to kill protest before it can reach critical mass. Something happened here to tip it over.
- jetzzz 6y agoI can't help but take this opportunity to say just how amazing Belarus protesters are: * They take off their shoes to stand on the bench [1] [2]. * They remove all the garbage after them [3]. Streets after protests are cleaner than before. [1] - https://t.me/nexta_live/8250 https://t.me/nexta_live/8250 [2] - https://twitter.com/belteanews/status/1294022770771341312 https://twitter.com/belteanews/status/1294022770771341312 [3] - https://twitter.com/belteanews/status/1295014755850235904 https://twitter.com/belteanews/status/1295014755850235904
- vondur 6y agoI’m guessing the President of Belarus is backed by Putin?
- Taniwha 6y agoProbably not the only one ....
- ykevinator 6y agoThat's a boss