> What is the Movement?

> And what is 'the political regime'? Do you mean Lukashenko?

> So is the Movement’s aim to liquidate the political regime?

> And who will be the leader? Matskevich?

> What qualities do you think we need in this political movement ' s leader? What sort of person should he be ?

> Is it true that the Movement began on TUT.by ?

> Why did you opt for open dialogue on a web-forum?

> So when you have conquered TUT.by, what next ?

> What results do you want to achieve in the TUT.by forums? Why not do this out THERE (in 'off-line') right now? Why waste time and energy?

> Why do the opposition keep losing ?

> And what should we do with avowed Lukashenko-ists ?

> You often seem to turn people who are anti-Lukashenko against yourself. Why are you sometimes so hard on people ?

> OK, how can I help ?

> What can I do on my own

> I want to do something in the real off-line world. What do I need for this ?

> So where do I find these forums where everything is explained ?

 

 

> Do you have a programme ?

> What do you intend to do first if you win ?

> How do you intend to develop/reform the economy ?

> Where do you intend to direct our foreign policy “ vector ” ?

> How will you resolve the question of our official state language? (What about‘ trasyanka ' as a third option?) ?

> How do we build a normal civil society? A society of individuals, as opposed to a submissive flock of sheep ?

 

 

> Who is Matskevich (worvik, Logoinkvisitor, Warvick)?

> Is Matskevich planning to defeat Lukashenko at the elections ?

> So does Matskevich intend to run in the 2006 elections ?

> What should we understand by the forum title “ Vladimir Matskevich – future president of Belarus ” ? Do you seriously believe you are the best?

> Matskevich is a believer. What if he constructs a theocracy for us??

> You are legally disqualified from being President of the Belarussian Republic as you were not born on Belarussian territory. What do you say to this ?

 

• Read more detail the political Movement initiated by V. Matskevich in forums on TUT.by [forums list] and in the Journal of the Movement (The Movement Blog).

 

 

Answers:

What is the Movement ?

It is a new Belarus-wide movement (on the Internet under Movement, Ruh, Rushenie) for the liberation of Belarus and Belarussian society from its totalitarian heritage - the current unprincipled, immoral and anti-humane political regime. A full account of the origins of the Movement is here.

The Movement was launched on the ByNet in October 2004 by Vladimir Matskevich (using the names of worvik, Logoinkvisitor, Warvick). In March-April 2004, the Agency for Humanitarian Technology and the Movement organised its Organisational-Activity Game designed to develop a winning political strategy for Belarus (Strategy-2006). On 12 June 2005, the Movement held its first Congress in Minsk.

 

Back to questions

And what of this political regime? Do you mean Lukashenko ?

By regime, we mean not only the individual authority of the usurper who has taken presidential office and the title of head of state, but also:

- the current system of state power ( the so-called “ vertical ” ),

- the state ' s takeover of all public institutions,

- the practice of giving state appointments to people who are weak-willed and can be easily manipulated using dossiers of compromising material; whose appointments mean they are under an obligation to one man only: who answer to him alone, rather than to the people, the electorate and society,

- government interference in institutions that were formerly (by tradition and by design) autonomous and self-regulating (such as science, including the National Academy of Sciences, universities, churches, creative unions, professional unions, and private business) by appointing their heads, controlling their finances and selecting their staff,

- the transformation of mass information media into mass media for propaganda, agitation and ideological brainwashing,

- the imposition of ideology on education; the emasculation of original thinking and creativity in the social sciences, literature and art,

- the vulgarisation and reduction to mere utility of our cultural heritage; the primitivisation of our traditions; the reduction of culture to ideology; the russification and renewed sovietisation of our language, education and culture,

- disregard for the fundamental and irrevocable freedoms and rights of man (freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, assembly and movement); disregard for the right to the inviolability of home and property; for the right to work, and for political rights to elect and be elected,

- the direct encroachment on people ' s life and well-being, taking the form of both the usual criminal outrages (the disappearance without trace of enemies of the regime), and concealment from the people of information about the threats to their lives and welfare (repression of organisations that gather and disseminate information about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster).

 

Back to questions

So is the Movement aimed to liquidate the political regime ?

The Movement has only three aims:

- To convince Belarussian society of the necessity of liquidating the Lukashenko regime and liquidating it using our own Belarussian efforts and actions – without any external interference.

- To identify within the Movement a leader capable of defeating and replacing Lukashenko as a head of state.

- Promotion of the chosen leader to the post of head of state, and the liquidation, over 1.5 – 2 years, of both the dictatorship and any prospect of its restoration.

 

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And who will be the leader? Matskevich ?

Matskevich is the Movement ' s founder. The search for a leader is one of the aims of the Movement, but the leader cannot be appointed. He must emerge as such himself.

Only the strongest of men can defeat Lukashenko. The Movement ' s direction will be determined not by any charismatic leader, however, but only by its declared aims

 

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What functions and qualities do you think we need in this political movement ' s leader? What sort of person should he be?

I ' ve already written, in veiled terms, about the leadership in “ Defiant Silence ” and to some extent also in “ BD:VO ” [ “ Belarussian Democracy: contrary to appearances ” ], and this has been available for all to read. But I would now like to say more, about which I ' ve not previously written anywhere else.

When I got to know the Poles who created modern-day Poland, and studied the history of the “ Polish-Jaruzelski ” war and the Solidarity opposition, I was struck by several facts which I later examined at length in theoretical terms. Rather than list all these facts, I will mention just one, from the memoirs of Bogdan Lis. (To be more precise, this is his version of it, as practically everyone who participated in Solidarity at the time speaks of it).

The military takeover of Poland happened in a single day, as a complete surprise, even though it had been predicted and people were preparing themselves as they waited, even making contingency plans to go underground. But nevertheless, when, during a routine meeting, all the leaders of KOS-KOR and Solidarity were arrested, and those not at the meeting were taken from their homes, only a few men remained free. These were not the most important figures, and not the most active or best informed either. All the real leaders were in prison. Only Lech Walensa remained free, left by the regime to pull the wool over the eyes of the world community. But he was completely isolated from everyone, apart from a few western journalists who broadcast his loud protestations abroad. A few people fled the country and some escaped the onslaught in Poland by accident: one was on a train, late for the meeting, another was out when the arrest party came knocking at his door. Bogdan Lis himself, on hearing that the onslaught had begun, just never went home and hid with friends.

Those who were still free didn ' t know any addresses or contact details, or who else was free. They didn ' t know which of those remaining were on their side and which had only avoided arrest in return for betraying their colleagues. Those who were still free had no power, and though they had been involved with the leadership, they were not themselves well known leaders. None of the rank and file Solidarity members knew them.

And yet these men worked a Polish MIRACLE, about which Mikhnik wrote in the extract which I have quoted on TUT.by. A miracle such as that described by Fosdick [ Harry Emerson Fosdick, author of ‘ The Man from Nazareth ' ], a miracle made by ordinary people.

Without their charismatic leader (who is under house arrest in Gdansk) …

Without any of the appointed leadership (who are in prison or abroad) or their powers … .

Without intellectual leaders (who are also in prison or abroad) … they just do what they know and understand; they just do what must be done.

And this is what they do:

1 – They find each other.

2 – They don ' t ask each other for powers or authorisation, but work out WHO IS WITH US, and WHO IS AGAINST US. They have complete trust in their own men, and avoid contact with the others. (We must consider the matter of complete trust further, for if we don ' t understand it, we can do nothing – as now).

3 - Rather than waiting for orders from their leaders and bosses, they study the texts of the KOS-KOR movement and draw their own conclusions about what to do, and then they do it.

4 - Deprived of access to the mass media, they pass on all the information they need from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and so each Pole knows everything.

5 - They make contact with their colleagues abroad, entrust them with the task of contacting foreign governments, and accept the help they need. But they take no instructions from external donors, they take no money that comes with conditions attached, they alone decide what help to accept or not accept, and how to spend it. In all its existence, and even in the toughest economic times, the Solidarity underground never once suffered any theft or embezzlement. It didn ' t even to occur to them that one of their friends might steal anything. (See under TRUST).

So what do we have in Belarus today?

1 -- They find each other . We are disconnected; not only do we not know each other, we don ' t even want to.

2 – They don ' t ask each other for powers and authorisation, but work out WHO IS WITH US, and WHO IS AGAINST US. They have complete trust in their own men, and avoid contact with the others. We are more interested in power on paper – who is the boss and who isn ' t, who has authorisation and who hasn ' t – than WHO IS OUR FRIEND AND WHO IS OUR ENEMY. We criticise and lay into our friends and hold protracted futile discussions with our enemies. We have an inbuilt fear of the idea of sorting people into ‘ us ' and ‘ them ' , which leaves the other side free to take charge, while we deride our own side and ourselves.

3 – Rather than waiting for orders from their leaders and bosses, they study the texts of the KOS- KOR movement and draw from these their own conclusions about what to do, and then they do it. We don ' t even know how to read so as to draw conclusions on what to do – we wait for orders. And we are not even waiting to carry them out, but just to sneer at those who issue them. We are so CLEVER, and the orders are so simple.

4 - Deprived of access to the mass media, they pass on all the information they need from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and so each Pole knows everything . We have covered our eyes and blocked our ears, we don ' t want to know anything; neither who is who in the country, nor who is doing what. We don ' t read even the few newspapers that the regime has left us, we believe nothing we read, and don ' t talk about anything to anyone.

5 – They make contact with their colleagues abroad, entrust them with the task of making contact with foreign governments, and accept the help they need. But they take no instructions from external donors, they take no money that comes with conditions attached, they alone decide what help to accept or not accept, and how to use it. In all its existence, and even in the toughest economic times, the Solidarity underground never once suffered any theft or embezzlement. It didn ' t even to occur to them that one of their friends might steal anything. We are waiting for ‘ help from abroad ' [ as in Ilf and Petrov ' s ‘ The Twelve Chairs ' ], we act only when money comes through and we let the people giving us that money set the agenda. Yet we know our situation better than they do, and we see that the tasks they set are senseless, so there ' s nothing left for us to do but to spend our way through these funds, making fools of the stupid donors. Whereas it never occurred to the Poles that someone might steal money intended for the battle against the regime, we Belarussians can ' t get it into our thick heads that some-one might actually want to do battle with the regime at all, rather than just posturing and shamming.

The problem is not the leader as such, although a leader is of course necessary. The problem is that the leader is just one person (or there may be a few of them), while his followers are in their thousands, and tens of thousands. The leader cannot assign each one his own personal task.

You need to know how to see the task formulated by the leader FOR EVERYONE, as if it is in fact your own. You need to look around for others who have understood what the leader wants, and who are acting in their own way - maybe not the same way as yours – to fulfil the same task.

You need to spread the word and tell others how the task can be tackled by merging together the small efforts made by each individual in his own patch into a unified and systematic force, which the leader can then use in pursuit of the overall victory.

You need to offer your services to the leader, because they only become real resources when they are combined, not if they are scattered amongst individuals, parties and groups. Don ' t be greedy.

But none of this will be possible until WE TRUST THE LEADER AND TRUST EACH OTHER. OUR MUTUAL FRIENDSHIP IS A RESOURCE FOR THE LEADER TO USE IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE REGIME.

A leader who is not trusted is an impostor, or an empty figurehead. A leader who is not trusted is powerless. And people who do not trust each other cannot have a single leader. People who do not trust each other can form neither a resistance, nor an opposition, nor a party. Nor a Movement.

So is it really worth asking what sort of leader we need to beat Lukashenko, since he won ' t be able to win on his own anyway? Perhaps we should ask instead what sort of team we need to defeat Lukashenko.

Yes, certainly. For the 2006 pre-election race, we should follow the principle (or fable) of the myth of the Golden Fleece (similar tales exist in many countries, Belarus included). Jason, the hero of the myth, who is reasonably strong, reasonably brave and reasonably clever, gathers together a team which includes the VERY strongest, the MOST cunning and so on. Because they are partners, combining the most varied talents and unique abilities, they win. As individuals they would have failed.

Without serried ranks marching behind, no-one will ever be able to take on Lukashenko. No-one will even get near to it.

Back to questions

Is it true that the Movement started on TUT.by?

Yes. The Movement started off in the virtual community that has grown up on TUT.by - the Internet is now the LAST TERRITORY not under state control, and a place where each individual can rely on relative safety and confidentiality.

Work on the Internet is unlike any other medium. It may appear insignificant, but it is not. We need to win everywhere, both in the real world and on TUT.by.

In preparing for the decisive moment, our Movement can clearly not manage without the resources of political parties, charters, trades unions and NGOs; or without the independent mass media, overseas partners, and much more. But there is a time for everything. For now, we still haven ' t mastered the BYnet, or won it over. The BYnet is the first thing in our sights.

TUT.by is the capital of the BYnet. Who has a BYnet map? Or Globus? We have to master all the territories within BYnet, one by one. We must deploy our assault forces wherever there are political forums; and then wherever there are articles and analysts; next, into party websites, analytical centres and so on. We must spread the Movement across the entire BYnet, operating methodically, territory by territory, portal by portal, website by website.

 

Back to questions

Why did you opt for open public dialogue in an Internet forum ?

The trick is to be the first to make our political activities transparent and open. This deprives the dictatorship of it main props – secrecy and intellectual apartheid

[ Read more here ]

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Suppose you have conquered TUT.by, what next ?

Once it has gained a foothold in TUT.by, the Movement must be extended over the whole of the BYnet, and then into the traditional electronic and print media. As it does so, we should start uniting people in the real world, drawing in institutions from the 3 rd sector (NGOs) and those parties which manage to survive the present conditions.

 

Back to questions

What results do you want to achieve in the TUT.by forums? Why not do this out THERE right now? Why waste time and energy?

The fact is that I do want to achieve results not HERE, but THERE, in the real world. [ Translator ' s note: the word ‘ tut ' means ‘ here ' – as used by the author, it stands also for the virtual world. ] But it ' s like the mathematical theorem we call a ‘ lemma ' , which is the proof of some intermediate truth, needed to prove an unknown value. It ' s the same principle.

Everything that is being done HERE (on TUT.by and on the Bynet) will make sense THERE, even though here we are still engaged in exercises, training, modelling and imitation.

.

Back to questions

Why do the opposition keep losing ?

The opposition lose because they are hostages to decisions taken earlier. Lukashenko always beats them by acting unpredictably and changing the context. Decisions are taken in a specific situation - for example in 2001 the opposition decided to take part in the 2004 parliamentary elections and began to implement plans made at that time. But the subsequent announcement of a referendum on amending the president ' s term of office meant that they needed a complete change of strategy to win.

We must always be ready for anything, on the alert. In our situation, it ' s no good for the opposition to follow the traditional Olympic motto: “ It ' s not the winning, but the taking part that counts ” . Our motto must be “ NOT TO TAKE PART FOR THE SAKE OF IT, BUT TO WIN ” , using all the means at our disposal.

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And what should we do with the avowed “ Lukashenko-ists ” ?

We should make things very uncomfortable for Lukashenko ' s supporters. Deride them all, wherever you find them, and make sure that every one of them knows that normal people regard them as fools, worthy of nothing but contempt and derision.

Go and find a couple of Lukashenko supporters and mock them, make them look ridiculous to their friends and acquaintances, so that they have to go about with their eyes lowered. Society should be a place where to be a Lukashenko-ist is a reason to be ashamed. Every one of them must feel like an outcast, a pariah, something despicable. This is how we will we lay down the foundations for victory. The USSR only collapsed when people became ashamed to be a Komsomol or party member!

Only a fool, a mercenary idiot, a moral freak or an arch-cynic can be a Lukashenko supporter.

Everything they touch must be considered “ unclean ” . The ‘ Belarus Today ' newspaper is a “ Sovbel ” [ Soviet-Belarussian ] publication, as are “ Seven Days ” , ideology textbooks, BRSM [ Belarussian Youth Union ] badges, and everything else belonging to these lepers. If you touch anything that ' s “ Sovbel ” – go and wash your hands. And don ' t shake hands with your friend until he too has washed away the last trace of the filth.

If you spot a Belarussian TV reporter sitting in a caf e , move two tables away, and keep two cubicles away in the toilets too. And don ' t forget to point him out to people – “ Look at that! Amazing to see an idiot who can cope with paying the waiter! ”

Lukashenko supporters should feel nervous when they go out into the streets, averting their eyes and scuttling away from good and decent people.

ARE YOU FEELING RELUCTANT?

Start doing it now. Try not to do it maliciously or crudely – do it with humour and irony. Be strict and serious about it, not condescending.

Feel sorry, if you must, for all the years of your life that this third-rate regime has filled with its vileness. Regret all the unsung songs, the unwritten books, the non-existent openings, the unplanted trees, the children that you ' ve not had. But do not feel sorry for the scum who have been stealing all this from you. They are stealing your prospects, your future - all these grey-faced, mouldy people who imagine that this is their time, and their country.

Because it is really ours! We simply need to bide our time. And make all these wretches a thing of the past.

Back to questions

You often seem to turn people who are anti-Lukashenko against yourself. Why are you sometimes so hard on people?

What we need now are fighters, not an electorate which only wants a candidate to comfort them, with free beer, promises or fine words, depending on how clever and quick-witted they might be. We, however, are not in the business of sweet-talking anyone.

We need people who are genuinely INTELLIGENT, without making a great song and dance of it. For a quick diagnosis of intelligence, check for a sense of humour and for the ability to ignore vacuous, offensive expressions.

We need fighters with a sense of their own self-worth, and not of self-importance; who know how to look after themselves, and don ' t complain if they are treated badly. We need friends who will move purposefully towards the common goal; not types like Vasisualy Lokhankin [ from Ilf and Petrov ' s The Golden Calf ' ], who fall under the spell of flattery and fairy tales about some bright future, then lose their nerve and scatter like cockroaches if you even cast a sideways glance at them.

We don ' t need snivellers and milksops. We need newsmakers - bright, creative, bold, argumentative people, slightly edgy perhaps, introspective, upright and honest, and capable of rapidly adapting to changing circumstances, grasping ideas on the hoof, without needing things to be explained or spelled out in such detail that even the enemy has got the idea first.

In short, we need high class people, and not … ., well you get the point!

Back to questions

OK, how can I help?

Think globally and act locally. Start with yourself. Find the Lukashenko-ist inside you and wring him out, ideally right now, but otherwise drop by drop.

Look around. Deride the Lukashenko-ists you see - not maliciously or crudely, but with humour and irony , and not condescendingly either, but strictly and seriously. Remember that this scum is stealing your future. The USSR collapsed only when people became ashamed to be Komsomol or party members!

Buy the opposition ' s publications . Don ' t stint. This too is an investment against Lukashenko. Look into the eyes of those around you. Find friends in whose eyes you see yourself reflected as a man, and who consider you to be a man too.

Read and take part in discussions on the TUT.by forums set up by the Movement, go to the Movement ' s website, www.worvik.com . Test your ability to think and act. Victory over Lukashenko ' s people on the Internet is the first step towards victory in the real world.

And join the Movement!

Back to questions

But what can I do on my own ?

There are many just like you, all imagining that they are alone.

This does not mean that you have to watch passively from the sidelines, or else nothing will change! You need to organise yourselves and each of you must do whatever you can in your own area. You are not alone in being dissatisfied with the current situation!

Believe no-one who says that “ this regime is forever, like the sky over our heads! ” That ' s just propaganda, and what use is that to anyone? You can change anything if you want it enough and start doing something about it.

I want to do something in the real world. What do I need for this?

E-mail the Movement at ruh@worvik.com . We have a job for everyone!

Back to questions

 

> So where do I find these forums where everything is explained ?

All the forums where you can talk live with Matskevich and get more detail on the Movement are at the TUT.by portal, in the Politics section . (See below for a selection of them).

News of the Movement and major documents are also published in “ Journal of The Movement ” .

 

"Politics" section at forums.TUT.by:
	V. Matskevich - future president of Belarus (part 1)
	V. Matskevich - future president of Belarus (part 2)
	V. Matskevich – future president of Belarus (part 3)
	(Matskevich) “Future president of Belarus” (part 4)
	(Matskevich) “Future president of Belarus – 2 (part 5)
>	(Matskevich) “Future president of Belarus – 3 (part 6)

 

Do you have a programme ?

In fact, we have two of them :

1) What we will do when we win.

2) What we are doing in order to win.

The open part of Programme 2 is set out in the text of Strategy-2006; the remainder is not for full publication, for obvious reasons.

[ See further details here ]

Back to questions

What do you intend to do first if you win ?

In the first instance it is essential to implement political reform, including curtailing the president ' s authority; restoring the separation of powers; creating a fully empowered legislative representative authority; autonomy for the courts and elected judges; organising local self-government that is independent of the state apparatus; restoring the supremacy of the law; a guarantee of basic rights and freedoms, and a moratorium on constitutional change.

The job of the second president will be to end authoritarian tyranny and restore a normal separation of powers. In the first instance, he must ensure a dramatic reduction in the powers of the president; transfer property expropriated by the Main Property Directorate (of the Presidential Apparatus) back into municipal control and permit it to be put up for sale at auction. The office of president must be de-mythologised and de-demonised.

All presidents of Belarus, starting with the second, must be without charisma.

[ See more details on political reform here ]

Back to questions

How do you intend to develop/reform the economy ?

The objective is a high level of competitiveness for Belarussian enterprises in OUR major markets.

This means regulation only through taxes, banking discounts, credits, customs duties and through other such technical levers of influence. It needs definition of, and agreement on, the position of the national economy in regional and global systems for the division of labour.

Where do you intend to direct our foreign policy “ vector ” ?

We start with moves towards entry into the European Union, aiming to be ahead of Turkey.

But we don ' t join NATO. We need complete military neutrality, with an army like that of Switzerland.

 

Back to questions

How will you resolve the question of our official state language? (What about ‘ trasyanka ' [a Belarussian-Russian patois] as a third option!)

 

We need an ecology embracing the Belarussian language and the dialects of the Polesski region. We need a gradual broadening of the spheres where they are used, and the freedom to use ‘ trasyanka ' , without formally legitimising it.

[ See more on languages here and here]

How do we build a normal civil society? A society of individuals as opposed to a submissive flock of sheep?

We must defend and stand up for the honour and dignity of man. If we don ' t challenge villains, don ' t fight back against the riff-raff, don ' t stop the louts writing their rubbish, whether in the subway or in the highest official chambers, then we should not be surprised that we are stuck with them.

We have them because our country has no aristocracy in the strict sense of the word – which is people who understand the concept of honour and will stand up for it. It is pointless putting our trust in the law when there ' s no-one to implement it. In our country, indifference has been elevated to a virtue. The senselessness of intellectual existence is masked by cynicism. Boorishness is considered a sign of strength. In the sciences, plagiarism has become the norm. In the courts, spurious legislation has displaced our written laws. The army operates like a gendarmerie.

Our main complaints against the regime are moral. If decent people continue to tolerate all this, not only will we have to put up with a boorish regime, but this will allow mass greyness to triumph. And worse - for, as it says in the story [ by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky ] “ It ' s hard to be a God ” , the grey will inevitably be succeeded by the black.

Back to questions

Who is Matskevich?

Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich is the founder of the Movement. By profession he is a methodologist, philosopher and political analyst. Since 2001 he has been contributing to forums on the www.tut.by website - under the pseudonyms of worvik, Logoinkvisitor, and Warvick – where he also initiated the Movement.

For more detailed information, see Vladimir Matskevich – Biography, and also entries in Who ' s Who in Belarus and the BelarusToday.info website

Back to questions

Is Vladimir Matskevich planning to defeat Lukashenko at the elections ?

In states run by dictatorships, presidents are not made by elections.

Elections in a dictatorship are part of the PR-war, intended to camouflage covert processes, to divert attention from one thing and attract it to another. The only way to win is to use a strategy of indirect action.

We must win! Not so much the elections. We must defeat the dictatorship and the loutish immoral regime that is corrupting our nation. To put an end to all this, we have to use the elections,but not only the elections. To overthrow Lukashenko and his regime – ALL methods are good unless they are IMMORAL, but elections are the only way to legitimise the defeat of the dictator.

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So does Vladimir Matskevich intend to run in the 2006 elections ?

He will only put himself forward as a candidate for the presidential elections when this is EXPEDIENT. At the moment, it is not. Vladimir Matskevich and the Movement intend to defeat the Lukashenko regime, and will do everything that is necessary to achieve this. If it is necessary for him to stand as a candidate in the 2006 elections, he will.

 

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What should we understand by the forum entitled “ Vladimir Matskevich – future president of Belarus ” ? Do you seriously believe that you are the best?

V. Matskevich:

“ 1) The nomination of candidates for the 2006 elections was catastrophically late [ … ]. I therefore asked one of my friends HERE to open a discussion on TUT.by headed: “ Matskevich – second president of Belarus ” , or something of the kind. And this was done … .

I am no fool and neither am I na i ve. I have not the slightest illusions concerning my chances of winning. They are scanty, but better than zero. But can you tell me whose are better? Klimov? Marinich? Poznyak? Milinkevich? Kazulin? Voytovich? [ … ]

So the aim is that as soon as a more worthy candidate emerges, someone really capable of success, I will work with him. This doesn ' t mean I will automatically withdraw my candidacy in his favour, because we need strategy and tactics. The strategy ' s target must be victory, and victory alone, but the tactics cover a greater range of targets. In particular, deflecting attacks on to myself or providing screening for the preferred candidate, and so on.

This is not just for fun. In games of this kind the stakes are high - very high - and so both our strategy and our tactics must be thought through in great depth.

2) I do not consider myself the best, cleverest or most worthy. But I do have much that the other candidates do not have. Let the best man win. For Belarus and for our future, we should all help each other. The competition should be fierce, but then the cooperation must be just as sincere and complete. ”

Back to questions

And what about Matskevich the believer? Is he going to construct a theocracy for us?

Matskevich is a member of the civil initiative “ For the freedom of religious belief ” , which brings together representatives from four protestant faiths, the Orthodox Church, the Uniate Church, Muslims, Buddhists, and two Jewish tendencies. Of their four proposed approaches to education reform, the only one which addresses secularisation was the one developed under his leadership.

[ See here for more details ].

Back to questions

You are legally disqualified from being President of the Belarussian Republic, as you were not born on Belarussian territory. What do you say to this?

Are the concepts of “ citizen by birth ” and “ born in Belarus ” identical in meaning?

I insist that I am a citizen by birth, even though I was born, at the whim of Stalin ' s man-eating regime, far from my Homeland.

(Article 80 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus is meant to ensure the EQUALITY of all the citizens of Belarus in the eyes of the law, not their INEQUALITY. It guarantees that every person born in the territory of the Republic of Belarus can receive citizenship after living here not less than 10 years, regardless of whether he is Polish, Jewish, a negro in his declining years or a simple Swede.

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Translated by Chris Ayton (Scotland)