MINSK, 21 January (BelTA) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko told workers of Minsk Automobile Plant which of the alternative candidates he liked, BelTA has learned.
“I don't even talk about the election. I'm trying to level the odds. There are five of us. I see that no one is making noise or fuss. During my visit to the technology park I was asked: “The election campaign is in full swing, what are you doing here?” I felt embarrassed, I came home and thought to myself: Indeed, I am not following the election campaign. I don't have time for this. My priority now is to maintain peace. This is my key task. Then I realized that I had to listen to what the alternative candidates had to say. And I turned on the TV at about 7pm quite by chance and saw the candidates there. I could handle only one and a half of them, to be honest,” the head of state remarked.
“I liked Seryozha Syrankov. He was fine. He said that his campaign is not meant against the president, quite the opposite, and they want the incumbent president to win, because what the president does is on board with their program. This communist man said it fair and square. He was sincere. I listened to him as he was presenting his program. Nothing new: he was talking about preserving our industry giants and sharing with people,” added Aleksandr Lukashenko. Another alternative candidate, among other things, gave their take on paying teachers for checking homework. “A notebook is a means of communication between a teacher and a student. You give students a task and you need to check how they coped with it. This can be a dictation, or an essay, or any other task. If you know of some other methods of assessing academic performance, go ahead with it. What I want to say is that you should not force teachers to do things that they do not consider necessary. If you don't like notebooks, you can drop them. But if you don't know how your students fare academically, you will fail professional evaluation tests and face the consequences. A notebook is about arranging the educational process between a teacher and a student. It is a good method. There is no denying it,” the president said.
The head of state urged people to be sincere with others and tell the truth. “Today we don't need to talk, we need to act. We need to build enterprises and provide people with not just jobs, but well-paying jobs, to make them more happy about their salaries. Those who work deserve more,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.