Defiant leader assails West, defends vote
MINSK, Belarus — The embattled president of Belarus on Sunday rejected any possibility of repeating the vote that gave him a sixth term, lashing out at the West and declaring that his country would “perish as a state” if the election were rerun.
Alexander Lukashenko spoke at a rally of tens of thousands of supporters near the main government building in the capital of Minsk. Protesters demanding his resignation organized a nearby opposition rally, which attracted a vastly larger crowd that swelled beyond 200,000. It was the ninth straight day of antigovernment demonstrations.
Lukashenko has ruled with an iron fist since 1994, repressing opposition figures and independent news media. But this year, protesters fed up with the country’s declining living standards and Lukashenko’s dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic have posed the biggest challenge to his 26year rule.
The president claimed Sunday that Western powers were gathering military units in countries along Belarus’ western borders and denounced suggestions by some nations that Belarus should repeat the Aug. 9 presidential vote, which opposition supporters say gave Lukashenko a victory only through massive fraud. Official results say he received 80% of the vote.
“If we follow their lead (and rerun the election), we will perish as a state,” Lukashenko declared, a day after saying he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed that Russia would send unspecified security assistance to the former Soviet republic if Lukashenko asked for it.
In previous months,
Lukashenko had warned that Putin wanted to take over Belarus, a nation of 9.5 million people in Eastern Europe that has a long border with Russia.
NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu dismissed the president’s claim, tweeting that there is no NATO buildup in the region.
The Collective Treaty Security Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states including Belarus, said Sunday it would make a decision about providing assistance if Belarus requested it.
Thousands have been arrested at the postelection protests, which police tried to put down with clubs, rubber bullets and flash grenades. When many detainees were later released, they showed extensive bruises they said were due to police beatings.