Former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in an interview with The New Yorker admitted that she forced herself to become tougher after numerous meetings with world leaders.
“I was forbidden to say that I do not feel like a politician, a leader, that I am just a weak woman – I often said this because I felt that way,” Tikhanovskaya said.
She recalled a meeting with the former President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, which convinced her that the acquired skills should not be underestimated. “She said,” Even if you feel weak, don’t say it. You should sit down at the table with leaders with confidence that you are also a leader, that you know what you are talking about, “” the leader of the Belarusian opposition explained.
Tikhanovskaya added that world leaders forbade her to talk about her own weakness, since she had already shown her strength. “I said that I was not a politician. Maybe it was precisely because of the dictatorship in my country that my idea of politics was wrong,” she said.
In the July interview Lente.ru Tikhanovskaya emphasized that she has “the view of an ordinary person” on political processes. At the same time, she noted that Belarusians should not vote for her as a politician , but as for the upcoming changes and fair elections: “I don’t need power. I want children, my husband and continue to fry my cutlets.”
In Belarus, for the fifth month, mass protests continue, which began after the presidential elections on August 9. According to the official results, Alexander Lukashenko , who ran for the sixth term, received 80 percent of the vote. The opposition considers the elections to be rigged.