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Alexander Lukashenko justified the need for a dictatorial regime by the availability of salt during a working visit to the Chechersk district of Belarus. He talked with district residents in an attempt to explain to them the disadvantages of democracy.
«We opened the border for them before the Catholic Easter, and Radunitsa is just a few days away. Let people come from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia to visit their relatives' graves, as has always been the case. I allowed them to travel without visas. But they don't let their people go to Belarus. Why? Because people are coming to us to buy salt. They have no salt! The Great West, the rich West has no salt! And to stop people from saying that Belarusians are living normal lives they just don't let them out. That's democracy for you. Well, thank God we have a dictatorship. You were criticizing me: dictatorship, dictatorship... But we have order!», the president said.
In 1995, in an interview to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the positive aspects of Adolf Hitler's rule.
«In its time, Germany was raised from the ruins thanks to a very tough leadership. Not all the bad things that happened in Germany are associated with the notorious Adolf Hitler. <...> The German order had been taking shape over centuries, and the process reached its peak under Hitler. This is what corresponds to our understanding of a presidential republic and the role of the president. <...> Germany rose thanks to a strong leadership, thanks to the fact that the whole nation was able to consolidate and unite around a strong man,» Lukashenko told the newspaper.