In Belarus, tensions rise after disputed election
Strongman president confident despite growing opposition
MINSK, BELARUS— He bungled the coronavirus pandemic, alienated his long-standing foreign ally and last week faced the biggest anti-government protests in decades, but on Sunday, President Alexander G. Lukashenko of Belarus was on course to win his sixth term in office, in an election his critics dismissed as rigged.
According to a governmentsponsored exit poll released after voting ended, Lukashenko won just under 80 per cent of the vote against four rivals, avoiding a runoff.
A heavy cloak of security descended over the capital, Minsk, where internet service was cut off, phones worked only sporadically and soldiers and riot police cordoned off the central square and the main public buildings. Long before the results were announced, the opposition, predicting that the count would be illegitimate, had called for protests Sunday night.
Tension escalated sharply Sunday evening after a police truck rammed into a crowd of protesters blocking a major avenue in the centre of the capital, injuring several people. Skirmishes also broke out in other parts of the city between opposition supporters and security forces.
The downtown area vibrated with the din of stun grenades as security forces, backed by water cannons, moved in to break up crowds of opposition supporters who gathered throughout the evening in locations across the city.
The result of the vote, as in previous elections, was never in any real doubt: Lukashenko controls vote counting, a vast security apparatus and a noisy state media machine unwavering in its support for him and contempt for his rivals. Facing the biggest outpouring of dissent during his 26 years of autocratic rule, he hoped to return his restive country to the predictable political rhythms that have kept him in power.
Security services arrested hundreds of protesters and many journalists in recent days, and on the eve of voting, the principal challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, went into hiding in Minsk after security agents detained at least eight members of her campaign staff. The exit poll showed her in second place, with less than seven per cent of the vote.
Tikhanovskaya had entered the race after her husband, Sergey Tikhanovsky, a popular blogger and would-be presidential candidate, was arrested and thrown in jail on what were widely viewed as trumped-up financial charges.
Lukashenko radiated confidence as he cast his vote at a university in Minsk on Sunday morning. “They aren’t even worth repressing,” he said of his opponents.
The opposition, energized by weeks of protests but unable to break Lukashenko’s tight grip on the electoral system, dismissed the election as blatantly rigged.
Despite the foregone nature of the election outcome, Lukashenko had been challenged like never before this year, amid the biggest surge of public discontent since he won the presidency for a first time in 1994, the last election in Belarus that outside observers judged to be reasonably free and fair.
He has struggled with a faltering economy, anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which he denied posed any threat to health, defections by members of the country’s economic and political elite and an open rift with his longtime ally and benefactor, President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Tikhanovskaya, who was declared the united opposition candidate in July after Lukashenko’s other strong opponents were either arrested or forced to flee, fled her apartment in Minsk on Saturday evening and went into hiding but emerged briefly Sunday to vote.