MADRID 3 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has not ruled out the possibility of using the Army to contain possible protests after the presidential elections scheduled for January 26.
“We need the police or the military to intervene. We need order,” Lukashenko said in a meeting in which he warned of attempts by the exiled opposition to put pressure on the electoral commissions on voting day.
“Our self-exiled opposition has already been inciting the West,” accused Lukashenko, who has criticized his political rivals abroad for calling for a boycott of the elections.
“They are within their rights,” he conceded. However, it has disfigured how “easy” it is to speak like this from abroad. “It is better that they come here and participate in the elections,” he encouraged. “There are no abuses here, there are no political prisoners. As president, I am not going to pressure anyone,” he said, according to the state-run Belta.
Likewise, he has called on his interlocutors to meet again to assess whether or not it is advisable to invite international observers to election day since he suspects that they will come “with preconceived assessments.”
Five candidates are running in the January 26 elections in Belarus, in which Lukashenko, who has held the position of head of state since 1994, when the country became independent from the USSR, is expected to renew his mandate for the seventh time.