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People in Minsk protest results of the Aug. 9 Belarus presidential election on Aug. 24. (Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko claimed reelection victory on Aug. 10, with 80 percent of the vote. Widespread protests in Minsk and other cities, as well as strikes, have continued since the election, with protesters declaring the election results fraudulent and demanding a new election.

The Belarusian government responded with violent repression, detaining and allegedly beating thousands of protesters. During the weekend, the government shut down media websites and newspapers, amid continued threats to escalate the crackdown on protesters.

Human rights organizations and outside observers have routinely accused Lukashenko’s regime of violating human rights and not holding free and fair elections. Lukashenko’s government jailed his challengers in the lead-up to the election, and the incumbent’s main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — a candidate for president and spouse of another jailed candidate — was forced to flee the country after the election.…  Seguir leyendo »

Mi nombre es Vladimir. Vivo actualmente en Minsk, donde ahora estamos luchando contra un gobierno dictador. No puedo callar más. Viví muchos años en España, y estuve acreditado como periodista deportivo. Y veo que ahí falta información.

Tras el séptimo día de protestas puedo decir que jamás ocurrió esto en 26 años de poder de Lukashenko. Y está todo en juego. Es sorprendente que, por primera vez, se anuncie ahora una "manifestación de apoyo" al presidente, que ya no es legítimo. Pero ya sabemos por qué. Llegan a nuestro país los representantes de la UE. Y quieren hacer lo típico del comunismo.…  Seguir leyendo »

People take part in a protest against the presidential election results demanding the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and the release of political prisoners, in Minsk, Belarus on 16 August 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

As protests and strikes in Belarus enter their second week, Moscow, Brussels and many other European capitals have struggled to respond. The politics that brought Belarusians to the streets of their villages, towns and cities are local: they are angry that their president of 26 years has tried to steal yet another election. But if the crisis in Belarus is at its core anything but an East-West standoff, it is happening at a time when hasty responses by either Russia or Western states could turn it into just that. Because such a showdown would serve no one’s interests, all stakeholders should take care to consult with each other and coordinate their policies, even as they do what they can to help Belarus and Belarusians.…  Seguir leyendo »

Women, many of them dressed in white in solidarity with the Belarusian people, protest outside the Belarusian embassy in Moscow on Saturday. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)

Today, thousands of women in white are streaming down the main avenue in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, protesting against police violence and the disputed results of the Aug. 9 presidential election. These same women are the leading force in demonstrations across the country. This new movement was born spontaneously and calls itself “the Women in White.” Like the Cuban dissident group Damas de Blanco, they are demanding the release of prisoners and an end to the excessive violence that has traumatized this country of 9.5 million in the past week.

For the first time since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, protesters have a real chance of pushing out a long-ruling strongman, and it’s all because of women.…  Seguir leyendo »

Women take part in an event in support of detained and injured participants in mass protests against the results of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Photo by Natalia Fedosenko\TASS via Getty Images.

Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s 26-year rule — one of the world’s longest — is itself testament to his regime’s unwillingness to change. Most of Belarus’s immediate neighbours — particularly Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland — are far more prosperous. Now, with the farce of last week’s vote and the subsequent renewed violence that Minsk is willing to use on its citizens, Belarus finds itself at the very bottom of the post-Soviet legitimacy league table. But others share a portion of blame for this saga. The West — and the EU in particular — have failed the people of Belarus.

Russia — as ever in its relationships with the Soviet Union’s other successor states — has much to answer for.…  Seguir leyendo »

People protest at a rally of solidarity with political prisoners in Belarus. Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka deserves sanctions. This election campaign in Belarus, which culminated in a vote on Sunday is the most brutal and dirty in its history. But, so far, the EU, the UK and the US have only issued familiar-sounding and futile appeals to the Belarusian authorities condemning their actions. Not imposing sanctions is a de facto licence to continue with repression.

Despite all this, the West is unlikely to impose significant sanctions afterwards. There are several questionable reasons for this. First, Western policymakers fear sanctions against Lukashenko will make him more likely to genuflect to Russia. However, relations with Russia have already deteriorated as Belarus accuses Russia of trying to interfere with its domestic affairs.…  Seguir leyendo »

Supporters of Belarusan opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya attend a rally in Minsk on Thursday ahead of the election on Aug. 9. (Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE)

Suddenly, something is stirring in Belarus. After 26 years of rule, “Europe’s last dictator”, Alexander Lukashenko, is facing protests and resistance by young people from all over the country who hope that this Sunday’s election will bring real change.

What they hope is what Lukashenko fears.

He has prevented the most obvious opposition alternatives to him from standing in the elections by arresting them; he has detained hundreds of opposition activists; and recently he has tried to ride nationalist sentiments by playing up real or invented Russian attempts to destabilize the country.

While a new trio of powerful female leaders, with presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya at the center — “miserable little girls”, according to Lukashenko — have energized many tens of thousands of people at their huge outdoor rallies, Lukashenko hasn’t been seen outside of a hall of well-behaved bureaucrats.…  Seguir leyendo »

A woman votes during preterm balloting at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, on Friday. The presidential elections in Belarus will be held Sunday. (Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Sunday’s presidential election in Belarus seems unlikely to bring any surprises — despite an unstable economy and a wave of discontent over the government’s poor handing of the coronavirus pandemic. Longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko downplayed the virus, advising Belarusans to visit the sauna and drink vodka to avoid falling ill.

Here’s why Belarus’s president since 1994 will probably be elected for a sixth term — and what this tells us about the survival of autocratic regimes.

Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime faces internal pressure

One thing is different in 2020: For the first time in the history of independent Belarus, there are signs of citizens becoming politicized from below.…  Seguir leyendo »

Survey of young Belarusians includes all potential candidates in early July, in advance of the official election ballot. Figure by Félix Krawatzek, using ZOiS survey data.

A week before Belarus’ Aug. 9 presidential election, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital, Minsk, and across the country in support of opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. President Aliaksandr Lukashenka, meanwhile, visited military training sites. State-run TV commentary affirmed the regime’s willingness to disperse future crowds of protesters to prevent a violent upheaval.

Official state media maintain that 70 percent of the population support Lukashenka, who has run the country for the past 26 years. Several nonrepresentative online polls put Tsikhanouskaya’s popularity at 50 percent and more. But what about the political views of young Belarusians?

A recent survey conducted by the Berlin-based Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) offers some key insights.…  Seguir leyendo »

Activists gather citizens' signatures in support of Nikolai Kozlov's candidacy in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Photo by Natalia Fedosenko\TASS via Getty Images.

An essentially sham presidential election in Belarus will take place on August 9 but, despite the expected extension of Lukashenka’s already 26-year rule, what is becoming clear is that this electoral campaign is significantly different from previous ones. The three major pillars of support that Lukashenka depends on to rule are feeling unprecedented strain.

The first pillar is public support. Lukashenka, in power since 1994, would actually have won every election he has been involved in regardless of whether they were fair or not. But now his popularity among the people appears to have plummeted as not a single publicly available opinion poll indicates significant support for him.…  Seguir leyendo »

Alexander Lukashenka leaves a voting booth on 17 November. Photo: Getty Images.

Belarus’s parliamentary elections, held on 17 November, were predictably non-transparent, with numerous violations. The regime of Alexander Lukasheka allowed no opposition candidates as members of parliament – in contrast to the previous parliament, in which there were two opposition MPs. While this might seem to be a return to ‘business as usual’, three key takeaways from the elections highlight a shifting political and social landscape.

1. Lukashenka is appeasing his ruling cadre by promising to increase their role in the political system.

With several influential officials becoming new MPs, it is more likely that parliament will be more involved in any forthcoming discussion of a new constitution.…  Seguir leyendo »

There can be no business-as-usual between the European Union and Belarus’ president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, after what has happened since the presidential election in Belarus last Sunday.

In recent months, hope had grown that his words could be taken seriously. He promised to invite international observers to the election, and he delivered on the promise. He talked about giving the opposition some space during the election campaign, and there were some improvements.

The E.U. responded by suspending sanctions and with a generous offer of conditional political dialogue, economic cooperation and the possibility of financial assistance. It would have been in the interests of both Europe and the people of Belarus to continue.…  Seguir leyendo »

Belarus's presidential elections are being held today – and never have there been so many candidates. But the number of candidates is no guarantee of any substantial political change.

The country itself has changed a lot in 15 years, despite the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko. Its economy has grown at twice the rate of neighbouring Ukraine's. This is a Chinese, or rather a Singaporean model – and Lukashenko is convinced it is the one best suited to the Belarusian mentality and geopolitical situation.

Not everyone agrees with him, however. A parallel society has grown up: rock music, samizdat and discussion clubs are all flourishing.…  Seguir leyendo »

By Timothy Garton Ash (THE GUARDIAN, 23/03/06):

'Nah, still don't give a toss ..." was the response of someone styled "thedacs" to my appeal for participants in the Guardian's new Comment is free blog to think about Belarus. But the flood of other responses - more than 70 as I write this - showed that a lot of people do care about what's happening in that frosty pressure point between Russia and the EU. And how they disagree; and how little anyone knows what to do about it.

Obviously we should start from the reality of what's happening on the ground in Belarus.…  Seguir leyendo »

By William Hague, shadow foreign secretry (THE TIMES, 16/03/06):

In the past two decades striking changes have taken place across Europe. The political map of the 1980s and the times we live in now could scarcely be more different. Once the Berlin Wall came down, borders opened and free elections ousted communist regimes across Eastern Europe. With surprising speed, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end. Former Soviet satellites are now members of Nato and the EU, and the recent “colour revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have proven that democracy may be late in coming, but sooner or later it arrives.…  Seguir leyendo »

By Mikulas Dzurinda. He has been prime minister of the Slovak Republic since 1998 (THE WASHINGTON POST, 13/03/06):

On Sunday the people of Belarus will cast their ballots for a new president in what should be the first, tentative step of this unhappy country toward democracy. But sadly, in the past few months we have received nothing but reports of campaign violations, tightening control of the media, imprisonment of civic activists and gross intimidation of the opposition, culminating in the beating of an opposition candidate. Under these cruel circumstances, one can doubt that the people of Belarus will have a free and fair choice.…  Seguir leyendo »