‘No new election until you kill me’, Lukashenko tells jeering factory workers

MINSK, 18 August. - (ANA) - Authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko has told citizens they will have to kill him for Belarus to have another election, after he was heckled and jeered by factory workers following 26 years of iron rule.

As striking workers fed growing mass protests over the allegedly rigged results of the presidential election on 9 August, which entered their ninth straight day, Mr Lukashenko flew by helicopter to a Minsk factory in a bid to rally support.

But he was met by angry workers, who booed and chanted for him to “go away” and “step down”, as exiled opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya offered to lead the nation.

“I will never cave in to pressure,” he told workers at the large state-run plant – the likes of which are the pride of his Soviet-style economic model and core support base.

“Some of you might have got the impression that the government no longer exists, that it has tumbled down. The government will never collapse, you know me well,” the 65-year-old former state farm director shouted. “There will be no new election until you kill me.”UK declares election ‘fraudulent’, adding to growing calls for international probe into abuse of protesters. But president offers concession to hand over power after constitutional referendum as opponent declares readiness to lead nation.  - (ANA) -

AB/ANA/18 August 2020 - - -