Belarusian Nobel prize winner says Lukashenko will be re-elected: who counts votes wins

By The Associated Press

BERLIN – Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian author who just won the Nobel Prize for literature, said Saturday there is no doubt Alexander Lukashenko will be re-elected president this weekend because the process is entirely under his control.

Alexievich told reporters in Berlin that for Lukashenko, who critics call Europe’s last dictator, “it plays absolutely no role how we will vote” in the election Sunday. She writes about the catastrophes, upheaval and personal woes that afflicted the Soviet Union and the troubled countries that succeeded it.

“As Stalin once said, it’s unimportant who votes or for whom, what matters is who counts the vote,” she said, speaking through a translator, at an event organized by her German publisher. “I don’t think we expect any surprises and I think everyone has the feeling that what is going on in Russia and in Belarus will last a long time.”

Alexievich also criticized the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “one can no longer talk of democracy there.”

“We had the naive view in the 90s that there would be immediate freedom” with the collapse of the Soviet Union, she said. “But for freedom one needs free people, and we don’t have free people yet.”

Lukashenko did not acknowledge the Nobel until many hours after the award was announced, and then issued only a brief and seemingly grudging statement saying that he hoped the “award will serve our state and the Belarusian people.”

Alexievich said she found it “a bit odd.”

“He eventually found the strength to bring himself to, even though he has a negative relationship with me because of what I say, and say about him,” she said.

Winning the prize is “naturally a kind of protection for me” to continue to be outspoken, she said, but also gives her new obligations.

“I have a feeling that I have new responsibilities,” she said.

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