We have a lot of educational programs: the School of Community Leaders, the Party Innovation Hub, and the Ukrainian School of Political Studies. We also practiced women’s education programs, some seminars for MPs. We do not aim to look for people who will definitely go into politics. Ukrainian School of Political Studies brings together people from very different fields and promotes public dialogue. When these people decide to become political players, we talk to them, we consult. The most important thing for us is for a person to do what they have a vocation for. It is impossible to become a politician without an inner desire. But the most important thing is readiness and understanding of what you will do there and why you are going there. Our Alumni have held a variety of positions since 2005, including mayors, MPs, ministers, deputy ministers, and even the prime minister of Ukraine. Everyone came to power and came out with different indicators. Our task is to show during this studying, communication, discussion, a real picture of what can await them, what responsibility they can take, and what they can share with others for the public good.

When we started the School in 2005, the first group included very different people, who then, 10-15 years later, held responsible positions. We saw them grow. We tried to support them and be there where we could. When a person does something all his/her life, he/she becomes a professional. We have good examples at the local level, when our Alumni – mayors, village mayors – test themselves, engage in this activity all their lives, and election to election check how much the community trusts them. There are cases when our people were re-elected 3-4 times. This is a smooth growth. People who fell sharply into what is called politics of national scale, with different losses and gains, came out of it. Reputational losses are insane. Achievements depend on talents, values ​​, and what life plan a person has.

Just before this local election, we had an exciting project – the School of Community Leaders. More than 200 people from all over the country took part in this program. We prepared people for the local elections. First of all, we tried to convince them: if they are worthy, they should try themselves in the election.

We encourage people who are aware of this to try and start with community change. I will say without any pathos: activists are also different. The word “activist” is now very “stale”. It’s like a trend. There was a trend for singers and stars in politics. Now the trend in the local elections is for activists. Why? Because civil society has a much higher level of trust than political parties and political players.

Compromises are also a problem. Which party to go from? How to deal with your reputation? How to convert it correctly? The fact is that there are no strong parties in Ukraine. Some projects appear and disappear like butterflies. We must move towards building normal parties. I would not envy the activists who are taking part in the election race now. There are two options: either they have a clear plan of what they will do in one term, they know how they will do it, they have a team of like-minded people and professionals; or they go into the unknown – and this unknown can be very cruel to them.

The question of whether activists should go into politics is wrong. It forms two camps: there are such as “good activists” who go somewhere and try to change something, and there are “bad” ones who stay away and just sit and philosophize. Many of the people we call activists are involved in professional NGO activities. This is exactly the same professional activity as baking bread, cleaning the streets, being a radio host. A lot of people from civil society became officials – so they wanted it and worked for it. Therefore, it is a question of vocation. The person should feel comfortable. You need to be clear about where you are going, with whom, and why. Once you compromise and don’t know how to defend and rebuild yourself, it won’t end well.

I know that many of the activists running in the elections have been offered autonomy in their work and decision-making. But it doesn’t work that way. When voting takes place, everything changes very dramatically.

In 2014, many young professionals from various fields who were not previously in power became members of parliament. As a result, any attempt to do something together was successful until a certain point, until the party battles began. For example, the project “EuroOptimists”. The Agency for Legislative Initiatives and the Ukrainian School of Political Studies have worked with them for a long time. We believe that these were MPs who did a lot of good, but they also had a lot of transformations. The main problem is not in people. They were good professionals, but they all came from different parties. Did they manage to create something of their own? We see now. Another question is how much support it would have.

“EuroOptimists” have managed to do a lot of good things in lawmaking. But they also showed that it’s not enough to gather a small group of good and motivated people.

It was a good experience for “EuroOptimists”, and we will see these people in politics. The most impress me those engaged in themselves, think what to do, and try themselves in other areas. The main thing is not to focus on the fact that you always have to be in politics.

Agency for Legislative Initiatives did a study “Life after Parliament”. We studied what happens to MPs after their convocation is over, and they are not re-elected. Power is a drug that people then constantly need. Understanding your balance – when to go and when to stop in time – is extremely important.

Activism is when a person in his/her free time is engaged in socially useful work, protects people’s interests, fights for justice. Often this is not a person’s place of work. It’s hard to imagine a place of work where you fight for a clean square. This is a civic activity. The parties are now trying to attract both professionals from civil society and people who are street activists. Among the latter, there are also many influential people, leaders of public opinion. We are in constant contact with such activists, whose values ​​we share.

For example, my work is related to the formation of inter-party dialogue. I am hardly able to join any of the existing political forces. I am responsible to the people for whom we work and that our work will not be politically engaged. I have enough authority. I see many opportunities to work in the civil society sector. Everyone chooses their own path.

I do not think that Ukraine only needs new faces. We see that new faces are sometimes worse than already known ones. Politics should be a professional activity. We need to build strong political parties and educate leaders.

It isn’t easy to plan a national leader. What happened a year ago in the presidential and parliamentary elections is just the journey. We had to go through it. Society had to show its trust in the previous government and give the famous comedian a chance to become president. Volodymyr Zelensky had every chance to go down in history. He probably doesn’t have any anymore. But there was a chance. Ukrainian society can provide these chances.

Then we elected the Verkhovna Rada with 80.4% of new faces. These are often people who do not have the necessary training to go to work every day and perform their duties well. We also live with this now, remembering that the Verkhovna Rada, like any public institution, is a mirror of society.

It is possible to do specific things when you have power. The opportunity to communicate with a much higher level of public trust than politicians is closed. There is a loss of a certain circle of communication. A person can be influential both in politics and in the third sector. The main thing is for everyone to be in their place and do their job well. Opportunities are equal in politics and the third sector.

My advice to those who go from the civil society to politics is just one – not to forget all the campaign slogans and references to the word “values” that they used and will use during the campaign.

A woman in politics does not necessarily hold a position. She is a woman who is a successful political journalist, a public intellectual, is involved in educational programs, develops what we call democracy in the broadest sense of the word, works in communities, and volunteers. If a woman is active anywhere, she usually has an impact. And then her path may end in political beau monde. It depends on the intention of this woman. Many women have had an extraordinary influence on world processes, especially ideological ones, in their daily work, such as Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, and Susan Sontag. People have to come into politics to do something. Specifically. This can always be limited in time. You can’t get involved in politics for the sake of a job or a pension.

The worst thing I’ve seen over the years is the drug of having power. It replaces the accents of the personality so much that, having lost this power, a person feels “broken” and no longer sees himself outside this ritual, such as working in the Verkhovna Rada, voting for some laws, going on TV. But this is manifested not only in women. I saw a lot of men and women who, being one cadence, for example, as a member of parliament, then recovered for a long time that they no longer have this power.

If you saw whom political parties include in their lists, you would be very surprised. The process, which must be completely adjusted by a person’s biography, life experience, plans, and ability to do something, is replaced by counting the number of women on the list to fulfill all the necessary formal features. It is very bad.

Most of our men and women grew up in patriarchal families. Only civic and political education will help to overcome these stereotypes. But we have to understand: kindergarten and school will never be enough if the patterns that a child perceives at home reflect the humiliation of women and girls compared to men and boys.

Women always have to work harder. Research shows that women can work much better and achieve better results simply because of social pressure. Because they know that they will be asked to do more, it is difficult for them to achieve recognition. This is happening not only in politics but also, for example, in academia. My university professor kept saying: “A woman who studies philosophy is something like a guinea pig”. It could and, of course, affected all the female students.

It is possible to increase women’s ability to win elections, first of all, through political education. We run programs such as the Party Innovation Hub, the School of Community Leaders, and the closed Parliamentary Program, where women can acquire skills they lack.

Education is the first. The second is not to be afraid, but to try. If you do not try yourself in the political process and elections but you say you always wanted to do it, nobody will know how to work with you: neither the best political technologist nor consultant.

The third is to go to people. Communicating properly, conveying your thoughts, and gaining support are possible only in personal communication. The Internet and various online tools will certainly help you. But your people need to know you. And the more they know you, the more chances you have to prove to them that they may trust you.

Lukashenko was supported when he had the resources to “buy” people: pensioners and state enterprises’ workers. You know, those state-owned enterprises that are extremely uncompetitive, their products are not sold – for example, the Tractor Plant. And people there receive higher salaries than university teachers. Of course, the workers were satisfied with this situation, plus or minus. But it was “bribing”. Lukashenko had enough money thanks to Russian infusions, oil transfers, and margins on oil products. We received oil at Russian domestic prices, and then it was processed at our plants and sold to Europe at European prices. Due to this margin, mostly, Lukashenko had support. Now, first, the price of oil has fallen sharply. Second, Russia has stopped selling at domestic prices because it has suffered severely economically itself. In the early 1990s, the Belarusian economy was quite competitive. We were a more economically developed country than Poland at that time. But during his presidency, Lukashenko destroyed the economy and science with his incompetent leadership. Russia has stopped supporting Lukashenko and his regime. And now the economy has collapsed. Lukashenko can no longer “buy” people. And “with him” remains only 20% of the population, who directly depend on him – it’s law enforcement agencies.

The economic situation is terrible. More than a million of the 4.5 million working population work abroad. Most of them earn money in Russia because they do not need visas and knowledge of a foreign language. Mostly, men go to work, and in villages and small towns, there are only women, children, and the elderly. People work for food and a roof over their heads. Recently, Belarus had a lower salary than Ukraine. And our prices have always been high. The standard of living has fallen sharply, even compared to Ukraine, which is at war. Belarusian stability is a myth. It is stable poverty, stable starvation.

People took to the streets against poverty, total disrespect from the authorities, against arbitrariness and injustice. During the coronavirus, the attitude of the authorities towards the people was especially clear. Lukashenko did not protect people, did not impose quarantine. So, people had to make horizontal connections. We learned to help each other during the pandemic. We sewed the costumes ourselves. We made the masks ourselves. There was no civil society in Belarus until last year. But the pandemic has shown people that they are capable of cooperating. People started to become a united nation. A clear example: the real statistics of deaths due to coronavirus in Belarus were silenced. Doctors were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The paramedic from Lida (the city in the western part of Belarus, – Agency) dared to name the real figures in his district. He was immediately fired. But in three days, people gathered for him an annual salary. When Belarusians began to support those who opposed the system, who were not afraid to tell the truth despite everything, then civil society’s principles were established.

In 2010 only those who demanded respect, the rights, and freedoms acted. They are now joined by those on the lower tiers of the Maslow pyramid – people who need security and food. There is no satisfaction of the basic needs of physical existence in Belarus now. There is not enough food, we do not feel protected. In 2010, the intellectuals and the opposition took to the streets. And now even factories are on strike.

Yes. We set people up for this throughout the election campaign. At each meeting, we said: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is just a symbol of hope. She will not lead people to the barricades. If there are one leader and one plan in our country, it will be very easily destroyed. We said that we should focus on decentralization. Everyone is now responsible for his/her life and future. And everyone must assess the possible participation in the protests: whether it is going to a demonstration, organizing a strike, posting leaflets or shouting from the window “Long live Belarus!”.

Fear. Uncertainty. They understood perfectly well that they had lost. The security forces were tasked with intimidating very strongly and sharply. Otherwise, society will continue to fight. People were beaten and tortured at the Okrestyna detention center. This was done deliberately to try to intimidate society and return it to the “stall”. But the authorities will not succeed anymore. People began to respect themselves. Now we are witnessing the formation of the people on the streets of Belarus.

We expect from the international community, at least, recognition of the victory of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Non-recognition of the fact of victory of the Belarusian people will be regarded as disrespect for their choice. We look forward to all possible diplomatic and moral measures to support the Belarusian people, as well as an end to violence on the country’s streets. We stand for personal visa and financial sanctions for those who falsified the election results and gave criminal orders to beat, injure, and detain civilians.

The transfer of power will be absolutely certain. Here the question is only in terms. This should happen as soon as possible to minimize consequences. This is in the interests of the authorities that will be held accountable. The regime has no economic basis to maintain its power. You can mismanage your farm if you have a lot of money. The current government will not be able to contain the situation either economically or in fact. This means that they will have to admit that people have won.

After that, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya promised three steps: the release of political prisoners, the restoration of the 1994 Constitution, which limits the president’s powers and term, and third, that conditions would be created for presidential elections to be held within six months. Everyone who wants will be able to take part in this fair election. Then the people, having evaluated the programs, teams, and personalities of the candidates will elect a new president.

Our government and parliament did not have any powers before. There are specialists in the government’s economic department, but they could not do anything without the approval of the president. A few years ago, Belarus negotiated with the IMF on serious loans and debt restructuring. All steps and draft reforms have been agreed with the IMF. It remained only to get a “yes” from the president and sign. But at the last moment, Lukashenko refused. Therefore, specialists in the government did not have the opportunity to work. To avoid serious shocks, we have decided that the average level of officials (from the Deputy Minister and below) is likely to remain in place. But the country’s top management needs to change. Thus, we will have the opportunity to build the government and parliament’s work in a completely different way. Those who systematically and seriously violated the law will be brought to justice.

In Ukraine, the protest was concentrated, mostly, at one point. We have all the streets of the city, sleeping areas are a “springboard” for demonstrations. The protests are “decentralized” because we understood from the beginning that centralization would be broken, that there would be no Internet, that roads would be blocked. We tried to convey it to people – and we succeeded.

First, we gathered a huge number of people at meetings. Such a large amount of people has not been on protest since the early 90’s. We talked to the people there. Secondly, we used Telegram channels. Previously, it was not possible to reach such an audience. Besides, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has a YouTube channel “Country for Life” created and developed by Sergei Tsikhanouskiy. We have learned to work with new digital tools. The desire for change enveloped the whole country, and our message spread very quickly.

Democratic, European, civilized. In the twelfth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania already had the Magdeburg right and determined the European course of development. Belarus is a European country. Now it will return to its origins.