Major cases of violence seem to be trailing last Sunday’s presidential elections in Belarus. The opposition party has refused to accept defeat and large crowds opposing the country’s autocratic ruler have taken to the streets to protest results from the polls that saw President Alexander Lukashenko secure another term in a landslide victory.
According to the country’s electoral umpire, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), Lukashenko (who has been in power since 1994) won 80.23% of the votes cast, while his opponent, a 37-year-old former teacher and stay-at-home mother, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, scored a measly 9.9% of the votes. While the commission is yet to fo publish the results from the polls, Tikhanovskaya who entered the elections in place of her jailed husband has refused to accept the results, saying she was the real winner.
Ongoing Protests
In Minsk, protests – now on its second day – have been met with a violent response from security agencies. While people blocked part of the streets with cars, riot police allegedly fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd of demonstrators to disperse them. According to the Ministry of Interior, one of the protesters died after an unidentified explosive device he was holding detonated in his hands at a barricade. A number of people were also arrested.
These cases mirror violent response to protests in the country ahead of the elections.
Opposition Candidate Flees
Opposition candidate, Tikhanovskaya, fled the country as police crackdown on protesters continued to rise. “I thought this campaign had hardened me a lot and given me enough strength to withstand anything. But probably I’m still that weak woman I was at the start,” she said in an emotional video posted on YouTube from Lithuania, where she had joined her children.
“God forbid you face the choice that I did, so people, take care of yourselves. No life is worth what’s happening now. Children are the most important thing in our lives,” she said.
Prior to fleeing the country, Tikhanovskaya had filed an official challenge to the election results at the CEC in Belarus on Monday, standing by her initial statement that the election results were not factual.
