After the 2020 presidential election, unprecedented protests broke out in Belarus, the protesters accused the politician who has ruled the country since 1994 of vote fraud. The police crushed the protests, and according to human rights organizations, about thirty thousand people were detained for various periods of time.
Tsyhanouszkaya, who was Lukashenka’s opponent in the 2020 presidential election instead of her husband, who was banned from the election and then thrown into prison, and later fled to exile, said she fears retaliation if people take to the streets again.
We cannot allow protests when people have been the victims of cruel reprisals for four years
– the opposition politician told the Reuters news agency in an interview in Ottawa. “These so-called elections would not have the impact that people need. So I ask them not to sacrifice themselves,” he said.
Belarus’ Interior Ministry announced last week that ahead of the election, the police will hold an exercise to prevent “extremist and terrorist demonstrations.”
The 70-year-old Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is running for his seventh term on January 26. Cihanouszkaja, who lives in Lithuania, called on the international community not to recognize the election results and demanded more sanctions from the democracies against Lukashenka’s regime.
The police presence, and despite the fact that 500,000 people left the country of 9 million after 2020, people are “organizing underground movements as a sign of distrust against Lukashenka,” Cihanouszkaja said. According to the opposition leader, Lukashenka must be weakened economically and politically, and when it ends repression, people will be on the streets again.
The cover image is an illustration. Cover image source: Getty Images
Source: www.portfolio.hu
