Mikalaj Statkevich: It’s not the State’s business what people do in their beds! (video)

Mikalaj Statkevich has told about the future of the police and the army in case he is elected as a President, how he is going to solve accommodation issues, and when we will go to Europe without visas, in the new ERB’s video-project “Candidate to Studio!” 

– What is your ideal of a political leader?

– Leu Sapeha. He was a patriot, a politician, a diplomat and a military leader.

– What is your favourite book?

– “The Crater” by Andrej Platonau.

– What about your favourite song?

– As for songs, that depends on the mood. I wouldn’t single out any at the moment.

– How many times bigger or smaller should a president’s salary be in comparison with a teacher’s or a doctor’s one?

–Naturally, a President should not be a beggar. He also shouldn’t have small salary on the paper, but have everything paid for in the reality. I think the President’s salary may surpass the teacher’s one by 3-4, or 5 times at the maximum. He should feel how all the others live at his own example.

– What is your attitude to sexual minorities? As a military man…

– I don’t have any attitude to them. However, I think every person has a right to love due to his own understanding. The most important thing is that there should be no violence over another person and – it’s not the State’s business what people do in their beds.

– Whom of your relatives do you see most often? Do you have any family traditions?

– I have private life, and I don’t want to make it public.

– The holidays marked red in the calendar – which ones would you cross out and which would you add?

– Probably, I would cross out November 7 as a festive date, as it actually symbolizes a fratricidal conflict – the Civil War, the most brutal war ever. This day should only be marked as the day of sorrow, the day of reconciliation. I am convinced that we should celebrate August 25 as the Independence Day, like any normal country. We gained legal independence in 1991. Also, I think we should celebrate November 27 as the Day of a Homeland Defender.  Ordinary people from villages of Slutsk district gathered together in 1920, formed an armed brigade and went to fight for their Homeland. No one forced or ordered them to do so. These were real defenders of their Homeland. So, I would introduce these dates as new ones. Definitely, Belarus is a Christian country so we have Christian holidays. And I think we should celebrate Christmas and Easter for more than one day.

– Can you tell us how much is a bottle of vodka today?

–I have no idea about the price for vodka, but I know how much is milk, or dry wine…

– And how much it should be?

–Strong alcohol should be expensive, more expensive than dry wines. The situation in our country is getting more or less equalized in this regard, because Belarusian enterprises start bottling these wines. However, the quality is a bit low. Decent dry wine with big excise taxes. Even the dry wine which is the cheapest abroad is approximately twice more expensive that vodka in our country. That’s abnormal.

– How many really close friends do you have? Do they participate in your presidential election campaign?

–Several people. They support me here and there.

– Which polyclinics do you go to when necessary?

–I address to certain health centers through the people I know. Thank God, it happens very rarely. I was in a health center a year ago for the last time in connection with, let me say, mechanical injuries. Central district department of internal affairs’ policemen tried to provoke me to resist for three hours after I had been nominated as a candidate for President by the Congress of the European Forces. I had to address to the health center after that.  

-Have you ever taken credit? If so, what for?

–I’ve never taken any credits in my life. Sometimes I borrow money from my friends, especially now.  

– Why have you decided you can be a President?

–I can fix this situation I Belarus, when there are no elections, and the authorities rehearse another theatrical show, and all the alternative candidates are given the part of clowns in this show. I think I can do something – I can organize pressure of the active part of the society on the authorities, in order to achieve fair elections by the means of public actions. I am the most suitable candidate to do it. If the election is like a circus, it is necessary to do something to stop that. I am not going to be a clown in this circus.

– Lukashenka is associated with stability in people’s minds. What can you suggest to people?

–I think that stability in our times, when everything is changing so rapidly, lies in development. If a country stops developing – you know, it’s like going through a bog – you start drowning as soon as you stop. Our country does not develop. We can lose the whole industry soon if we don’t take any measures. We need to do something. Stability can be achieved through development. That’s my approach.  

– So, let us imagine Mikalaj Statkevich has become a President. Do you have people in your team who could be Ministers, or governors? What will you do with the “Belarusian Republican Youth Union” and “Belaya Rus”?

–When a certain person becomes President, he has the whole elite of the country in his disposal. Manufacturing, industrial, intellectual elite. The choice is wide. I can take several people from this list of contenders to my team as advisors, or even Ministers. There won’t be any problem with that.  Apart from that, there is the so-called “kitchen cabinet”. There is a group of experienced people, in the party in the first place, the people who came through a lot of challenges with me, who proved their organizational skills by keeping the party’s structures in the conditions of such brutal pressing. They are great administrators. As for the organizations that you’ve mentioned, I think they should be put in equal conditions with everyone else. If they survive than they have the right to exist. If they die without subsidies, or without forcing people to be their members – than it’s also fair. On the whole, I think there’s no point in witch hunting.  Belarusians should achieve understanding and peace in the end of it all. Naturally, what needs to be done is to compensate moral and other losses to people who suffered from the regime, and punish those who are guilty in criminal offences. Murder is not forgivable. Political murders should be investigated and the criminals should be punished.

–What are you going to do with growing of prices for food, if everything goes well?

–The first step is obvious – to change the investment and business climate. That means, to amend legislation so that people would not be afraid to invest here, so that investments become systematic, and money arrive. We need systematic investors with their technologies and goods transporting networks. I think that the problem of price growing is closely connected with competitiveness of our industry, and the competition in itself.

– Unprofitable enterprises – should they be closed or saved?

–I think we should find an investor for such enterprises so that he would modernize them, provide new markets. Such enterprises should be sold, either part of the stock or full stock.

– It is impossible to find investors for all enterprises – the reality will force to close part of them anyway. Do you have a plan where the employees of these enterprises will go?

–First of all, we need to give a breath of air to small and medium business. This is the force which creates the majority of gross domestic product in normal countries. It is very flexible and effective, and creates a lot of working places. What we need to do is not to strangle it, but help it to develop. That’s where the laid-off working force of the non-profitable enterprises could go. The working force is being laid-off at some of them even now.

–I have a question to you as a military man: do we need such a big army as it is now? And another question to you as a politician: do we need so many policemen?

–Belarusian army consists of about 40 thousand military men. It is not big and does not require much finance. The state needs an army. Not just because it’s one of the features of sovereignty, but because everything happens and defenselessness tempts. The only thing I want to say is that, if you hire a man to serve in the army for money and tell him: “You are here so if the State gives an order – you must go and die”, then you need to provide him a decent life. The main problem here is accommodation. Certain percentage should be transferred to a special account in the army, so that a military man could buy himself a normal accommodation facility after he retires. We have 9 Special Forces with the right of the operative activity. This is what we need to cut down a bit. Frankly speaking, we are not such a criminal nation; we don’t need 3 times more policemen per citizen, than in Poland. Why do we have so many special forces, which repeat each other and watch over each other? Such disbelief? Such fear? We need to fear less. A normal person should have nothing to fear in our country. 

– When will young families be provided an opportunity to build their own apartments quickly?

– First, we need to develop mortgage loans. Secondly, competition at the accommodation construction market, in order to avoid such situations when a monopolist collects money, having received a piece of land, and builds something with this money. The next time he can fail to build anything, or take the money and disappear. There should be competition for getting accommodation for construction and for sale. It will make the prices go down. And the third moment is development of rental accommodation, when there will be whole city blocks of such houses, where it will be possible to rent an apartment for prices not much higher than usual apartment fees.

–I am worried about our relations with Russia as I work there. Will we unite and introduce a single currency in the end of it all?

– Russia is a very big country and it will always have influence here. This influence, if not compensated by anything, can lead to absorption of our country sooner or later. This is something I really don’t want to happen, being a Belarusian and a patriot. We don’t need to run away from Russia, as I first said in 1998, we need a balance. A friendly and non-conflict Russian-Belarusian balance. We need to develop our relations with Europe, to enter the European economic space, as well as political and visa spaces.  Even attempts to get closer to Europe will stimulate this balance. As for single currency… I think it’s unreasonable. No one will allow to do that on equal conditions, and if the conditions are not equal – this is in fact loss of sovereignty, loss of influence over our own currency. Anyway, I don’t think the Russian rouble has such status as the euro or the dollar, which would be reasonable to adopt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

–Isn’t it beyond reality that Belarusian people will go to Europe without visas? When will it be possible?

–I think it’s absolutely real – non-visa entrance to the EU. Ukraine is about to get that. We could have got it much earlier, as Belarus is a smaller and quieter country, with less corruption, and less population as well. The only obstacle is our authorities – as soon as we have democracy this issue will be solved very quickly.

– How to make salaries bigger?

–There is the only way to do it – we should make our economy more effective. We need to develop manufacture, efficiency, competitiveness. Then the salaries will also grow, as if investors come here, the competition for a person, for an employee will grow. And this competition will allow increasing salaries faster. This is what happened in some neighbouring countries.

–Won’t we live even worse than now?

– Our neighbours conducted reforms in much more difficult situations and life became better there. If we don’t pay attention to those scary stories told by BT, which makes up the problems in other countries and keeps silent with regard to our problems, I would give you an example: Polish pensioners, I mean, ordinary pensioners, go to rest in Spain, or Egypt. Our pensioners think about a piece of bread, about milk and how to pay the rent. And that’s good, they say, we don’t need war. The world goes forward, it is changing rapidly, people’s demands grow and we still live in accordance with the after-war categories.