Belarus Opposition Calls To Oust President

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• President Alexander Lukashenko has just won his sixth term early this month but daily protests have been happening on the streets, calling for his ouster.
• Lukashenko, in power since 1994, accuses the West, the US, and the NATO alliance of interference.
• More than 100,000 protesters marched on the streets on Sunday, calling for the resignation of Lukashenko after a disputed presidential election two weeks ago.

The recent election in Belarus gave President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term as the country’s leader. He got 80% of the vote and the citizens are protesting that the election result was a fraud.

Days after the election, citizens have been gathering to protest government policies. The protesters got beaten with clubs and shot with rubber bullets and at least 7,000 were arrested.

Just this weekend, though there is no official crowd count, a crowd of more than 150,000 covered the 17-acre Independence Square in the country’s capital, Minsk.

This time, the police just stood to watch and did not break up the crowd immediately.

Lukashenko, 65, has been ruling the former Soviet republic for 26 years and protests of this magnitude are unusual. The opposition has been mounting due to Lukashenko’s policies that brought the country’s failing economy and mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic.  He has ruled the country with an iron fist that those who openly challenged him, fled the country after the elections.   

Lukashenko has been blaming the West for interfering in his country and claims that the protests are US-backed and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to offer assistance to put an end to the protests if he asks for it. And even if NATO denies any hand in it, he even accuses the alliance of building up troops in his country’s borders with Poland and Lithuania.

The daily demonstrations against the government’s policies are not the only protests happening.  Workers have also been going on strikes at the country’s key factories.

As one protester, Slava Chirkov said, “Belarus has changed. Lukashenko has been able to unify everybody, from workers to intelligentsia, in the demand for change.”

Lukashenko has had a traditional blue-collar base but the worker’s strikes are proof of the change.  He used to be a director for a Soviet-era collective farm. One protester’s sign read: “Lukashenko, your milk has gone sour.” 

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko’s main election challenger, fled to Lithuania the day after the election.

Source: New York Post