Belarus Leader Admits to Staying ‘Too Long’ in Power in Russian State Television Interview

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed Tuesday that his 26 years in office might have been excessive, but pledged to preserve his grip on power despite extensive demonstrations versus his rule.

Lukashenko’s rare admission has been a rallying cry for thousands of hundreds of demonstrators who flooded the streets of Belarusian cities for the past month to protest his disputed political election success that handed him a sixth presidential term.

” I may have stayed in power a little too long,” Lukashenko told four reporters from Russian state-run media in his first interview because the Aug. 9 vote, according to among the journalists’ summaries of the interview.

” But only I can truly shield Belarusians currently,” Lukashenko was estimated by the reporter as saying.

One more Russian journalist who interviewed him claimed that Lukashenko swore to remain in power, estimating him as saying: “I’m not gon na leave easily. I’ve accumulated Belarus for a quarter-century, I will not simply offer it up.”

” Besides, if I leave, my supporters will certainly be butchered,” Lukashenko declared without evidence.

Anti-Lukashenko demonstrations considering that the disputed Aug. 9 vote have been mostly peaceful, with the days quickly following the election marked by widespread violent apprehensions as well as torture of protesters. Lukashenko admitted “excesses” throughout the authorities’ “initial hotheadedness” but safeguarded the trouble police’s habits during what he said was their “protection of the nation from Blitzkrieg.”

Lukashenko really did not rule out early elections after constitutional reforms he had actually assured in the wake of the demonstrations, the state-run RIA Novosti news company reported.

Addressing his look with an automatic rifle outside his cordoned-off residence in Minsk while more than 100,000 individuals collected nearby in late August, Lukashenko said:

” It indicated just one point: I have not fled as well as I’m ready to safeguard my country throughout.”

The set-piece interview happened a week after reports stated that Belarusian state television changed its striking reporters as well as technical workers with those from the Kremlin-funded RT broadcaster. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan was amongst the four Russian reporters to interview Lukashenko.

The 66-year-old’s latest admission comes a week after he acknowledged Belarus’ “rather tyrannical system” he has looked after given that concerning power in the ex-Soviet state in 1994.

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