Lukashenko defies protesters in Belarus and asks Putin for help
● Demonstrations continue as ruler rejects appeals to re-run the election
president Alexander Lukashenko, under pressure from huge protests after an election that gave him a sixth term in a landslide, has vehemently rejected any possibility of holding a rerun of the vote.
He spoke at a rally of thousands of supporters near the main government building in Minsk yesterday.
Meanwhile, large crowds streamed toward the site of an opposition rally 1.5 miles away in the capital city, the ninth straight day of anti-government rallies.
Thousands of people also gathered outside the state television station demanding full coverage of protests against the disputed presidential election. Opposition supporters outside the building in Minsk held banners with signs saying “show people the truth”.
Mass protests erupted after Mr Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in the 9 August vote.
The state broadcaster initially chose not to cover the protests. State TV later showed footage of violence to blame protesters and warn people not to participate.
Several journalists have resigned over the coverage.
Belarusians living in Scotland held a rally outside the National Gallery of Scotland on Edinburgh’s Princes Street yesterday in support of demonstrators in their home nation.
The authoritarian president has ruled the ex-soviet nation since 1994, repressing opposition figures and independent news media. But this year, fed up with the country’s declining living standards and Mr Lukashenko’s dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, sustained anti-government protests before and after the 9 August presidential election have posed the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule.
Yesterday, the 65-year-old accused western powers of interfering in his counbelarus try’s sovereignty. He claimed they were gathering military units in countries along Belarus’ western borders and denounced suggestions by some western nations that Belarus should rerun its presidential vote, which opposition supporters say gave Mr Lukashenko a victory only through massive fraud.
“If we follow their lead [and rerun the election], we will perish as a state,” Mr Lukashenko declared yesterday, a day after saying he and Russian president Vladimir Putin has agreed that Russia will send unspecified security assistance to Belarus if Mr Lukashenko asks for it.
In previous months, he had warned that Mr Putin wanted to take over Belarus, a nation of 9.5 million people in eastern Europe that has a long border with Russia.
As Mr Lukashenko invoked fears of western military designs on Belarus, the Collective Treaty Security Organisation, a military alliance of six former Soviet states including Belarus, said it will make a decision about providing assistance if requested.
Election officials said last week that Mr Lukashenko won a sixth term with about 80 per cent of the vote.
Protesters claim the election was a sham and allege results were manipulated. As postelection protests grew, about 7,000 people were arrested at the demonstrations, 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. Some protesters at rallies carried pictures of loved ones so beaten by police they could not attend.
On Saturday, hundreds of opposition supporters turned out for a funeral for one protester, Alexander Taraikovsky, 34, who died last week in Minsk under disputed circumstances. The government claim he was killed by an incendiary device he was carrying, but his partner saw the body and said there were no marks on his hands. She believes he was shot.