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Belarus Presidential ‘Election’: Rigged, but Opposition Remains Hopeful
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Race
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Aug 10, 2020 10:36am |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Leon Andrius Liesener |
| News Date | Sunday, August 9, 2020 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Belarus, the country dubbed ‘the last dictatorship in Europe’, is heading to polls on Sunday to ‘elect’ their next president. The elections are not free or fair by any definition, but the unabashedly and publicly authoritarian president Alaksandr Łukašenka has faced larger protests and backlash than ever before.
Since 1994, shortly after the Belarusian independence in 1991, Belarusian President Alaksandr Łukašenka has governed the country with a firm hand. The former kolkhoz director proudly claims to have been the only representative of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet—country’s supreme decision-making body elected in the tumultuous years of the fall of the Soviet Union —to vote against the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He came to power in a protest vote against the established forces of the still very young democracy. Łukašenka presented himself as a fighter against corruption, who voiced severe allegations of corrupted wrongdoing against many government officials and political opponents.
Perhaps the most critical case was levelled against his 1994 election opponent and then-Prime Minister Viačasłaŭ Kiebič, who was at that time widely expected to secure the presidency. Soon after taking over, Łukašenka started to weaken the parliament, centralise power, and reïntroduce old Soviet national symbolism. One prominent example of this is replacing the traditional white-red-white flag of Belarus with the current flag from the soviet era. |
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