President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday blamed this month’s deadly Minsk metro bombing on Belarus relenting to Western pressure for a “sickening” degree of democracy in the former Soviet state.
“We are responsible for this ourselves,” the authoritarian leader, known for his at times bizarre statements and antics, told lawmakers in his annual state of the nation address. “We took on so much democracy on the eve of the election that everyone — both you and me — started feeling sick,” said Lukashenko, referring to December 19 presidential election. “There was so much democracy that it was sickening,” he added.
The April 11 metro bombing — the first deadly attack in the republic’s post-Soviet history — killed 13 people and led to the detention of at least five suspects as well as three opponents of Lukashenko’s 16-year-old regime. It struck amid rising political tensions, with several former candidates facing trial and the country reeling from the effects of a forced currency devaluation that is slowly wiping out citizens’ savings. The blast and unfolding economic crisis have delivered a double blow to Lukashenko, who has prided himself on ensuring stability at the cost of political freedoms for those who oppose his rule. He has previously linked the bombing and the country’s economic problems, blaming them both on unnamed enemies of the state who work both inside the country and abroad. But Lukashenko has thus far revealed no clear motive for the bombing, confirming Thursday that a full investigation had still not finished.
“This act of terror has thus far not led us to any politician, criminal or bandit,” Lukashenko said. The former collective farm boss won last year’s election with nearly 90 percent of the vote in a poll which the West had hoped would show signs of democratic progress but then condemned as a fraud. European Union officials had visited Minsk ahead of the polls, encouraging Lukashenko to embrace greater democracy in exchange for European integration.
