Posts Tagged quotes

Today it’s the 15th anniversary of Belarusian President Lukashenka in power.

It’s a strange feeling – that’s half of my life. Sometimes I feel as a linguistic invalid. With a new regulation introduced 4 years ago I got used to apply the word president to the one and only position in the country. And feel ill at ease to refer to him as to “the current president”. He is The President here.

But no comments from my part. The quintessence of the years could be followed through Lukashenka’s quotes. I’ve tried to pick out those that don’t lose their meaning without the context. Anyway direct quotations often say more than they read.

- “I am the president of the country and this country will be [=exist] until I am the president.”

- “We falsified the latest election [in March 2006], I’ve already told westerners about this. As many as 93.5 percent voted for President Lukashenka. They say it is not a European figure. We turned it into 86 [percent]. This did take place. And if we now start recounting ballots, I don’t know what we should do with them.”

- “I enjoy playing football and hockey, but most often I play alone.”

- “I want you to wear your own and eat your own [products]. They are probably packed not as good as the foreign things, but today we don’t have enough foreign currency.”

- “I am confident that the Europeans will come crawling to Belarus to ask for co-operation in the fight against drug trafficking and illegal migration.”

- “I think Americans realised that Belarus is the key country in Europe and they need to cooperate with it.”

- “Our “dictatorship” doesn’t hinder anyone’s life or development.”

- “I am pretty tired of the question of the so called political prisoners. There are no political crimes therefore there can be no political prisoners. They are ordinary criminals <…> We released them.”

- “Those <detained during demonstrations> were unconscious and blind drunk, 10-15 days arrests’ were necessary for them to recover themselves.”

- “What kind of opposition is that? They’ve been fighting in the centre of Europe for more than 20 years, I guess, and still can’t put at least one man into the parliament – to be honest, even with the support of the authorities.”

- “Those who drink – you’d better not vote for me, I won’t be a friend of yours.”

- “All these years I’ve been carefully and reverently carrying this clear, crystal vase called Belarus.”

- “The situation in Belarus is unique as I don’t owe anything to anyone.”