mr president ladies and gentlemen heads of state and government co-leaders of the democratic world
allow me to share a personal reflection with you 31 years ago i voted in free elections
for the first time and for the first time in the history of poland after world war ii my
generation could democratically elect a president a year ago as the second president in our history
i won re-election it happened with a record turnout and after a very
close competition with my opponent rafael chazkowski the incumbent mayor of warsaw
if i had stood in front of you just several months ago i would have probably talked as many
of you have about my country about poland which had to shed blood for democracy time and again
furthermore i would have probably talked about the priorities of our generation of world leaders
and about a great task facing us and that in my opinion consists in the overcoming of the
polarization which is unfortunately increasingly evident in the post-pandemic world on a scale we
have not seen before and in almost all countries my country is no exception in this regard i would
have probably said that democracy must return to its root the debate must be debate again not a
call to censor opponents that political struggle must not be tantamount to dehumanization of the
opponent because the opponent is simply a person who for various reasons has different views than
we do in the meantime however something happened that changed my perspective on the democracy
debate four weeks after my re-election when over 20 million of my compatriots polish women and men
exercised their right to vote our neighbors belorussian men and women were once again deprived
of this right in the most brutal of ways and mind you belarus lies 180 kilometers from warsaw
there runs a border of democracy and maybe even more than that there is a yawning gap between
democracy and the lack of it in belarus there is no discussion about the electoral system
polarization minorities and ideologies this is a luxury of us westerners there the concern is
how to get 900 people out of prison those whose only fault was the desire to have free elections
and how to remove from power a dictator who has been ruling the country for 27 years
and who in breach of all civilized rules rigged the vote and pacified the protests why am i
talking about belarus because poland grateful to providence for our freedom won in the 1980s
took on a commitment years ago to be a support for democracy in eastern europe it is a beautiful task
but it has its consequences it has made us the target of the kremlin propaganda
and more recently we have been paying the price in the form of a hybrid operation on our border
provoked by the dictator alexander lukashenko i was asked for commitments so i make a solemn
declaration to our belarusian brothers and i wanted to be heard everywhere east of poland
poland shall continue to be a promoter of democracy because i believe that my daughter
born in 1995 who has not lived as second in a dictatorship and her belorussian peer who has
never seen free elections are two equal people with equal rights i declare as the president of
the republic of poland that belorussian women and men 180 000 of whom have found work or shelter in
poland will be treated by us as brothers and as most welcome guests i declare that poland
is aware of the fact that supporting democracy has its price attached it is paying this price today
with our border guards police and army guarding the eastern border of the european union
against a dictator's revenge against tyranny and contempt for humanity i am saying this
not only as the president of the republic of poland i am saying these words as andrei duda
who in 2025 will end his presidency and hand over power to his democratically elected male
or female successor and then he will proudly become an ordinary citizen again simply a voter
and i believe that belarusian men and women will one day see the same democratic normality the one
in which presidents change but they remain free citizens free and independent voters
i appeal to all of you for solidarity in this matter i appeal for solidarity with
belarus it is one of the most important challenges of the democratic world today