MINSK, Belarus – President Alexander Lukashenko, tense about the great protests that broke out after questionable elections that earned him a crushing sixth term, on Sunday vehemently rejected any option to revive the vote.
Lukashenko spoke at a rally of thousands of government supporters near the main construction of the government in Minsk, the capital, as large crowds went en masse to a 2.5-kilometer (1.5k) opposition rally, the ninth consecutive day of anti-government demonstrations.
The authoritarian president has ruled the former Soviet country with an iron hand since 1ninenine4, suppressing opposition figures and independent media, but this year, fed up with the decline in the country’s life and Lukashenko’s rejection of the coronavirus pandemic, the government’s sustained anti-government protests before and after the presidential election of 9 August posed the biggest challenge to his 26-year reign.
On Sunday, Lukashenko, 65, accused Western powers of interfering with their country’s sovereignty, claimed that they were collecting army sets in countries along Belarus’ western borders, and denounced councils across some Western countries that Belarus would re-vote on August 9., that opposition supporters said he had only given Lukashenko a victory through great fraud.
“If we set his example (and relaunch the election), we will perish as a state,” Lukashenko said Sunday, a day after pointing out that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed that Russia would send uns specified security aid to Belarus if Lukashenko requested it.that’s it.
In recent months, Lukashenko had warned that Putin wanted to take over Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people in Eastern Europe that has a long border with Russia.
While Lukashenko invoked fears of Western army projects in Belarus, the Collective Treaty Security Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states, Belarus added on Sunday that he would take the resolution to provide assistance if Belarus requested it.
Election officials said last week that Lukashenko had won a sixth term with about 80% of the vote.Protesters claim the election is a sham and allege that the effects were manipulated.
As post-election protests increased, about 7,000 more people were arrested during the protests, which police tried with all their might to crack down with pores, rubber bullets and flash grenades. When many detainees were later released, they showed large bruises that they believed were due to police beatings.. Some protesters at the rallies took pictures of those they enjoyed so beaten by police that they may not attend.
On Saturday, many opposition supporters attended the funeral of a protester, Alexander Taraikovsky, 34, who died last week in Minsk in debatable circumstances.The government claimed he had been killed by an incendiary device he was carrying, but his wife saw the frame and told The Associated Press that there are no marks on his hands, just a hole in his chest, and she thinks he fired.
A video of The AP Newshounds showed Taraikovsky without a bloody blouse on the floor, but showed that he had an explosive device that exploded in his hand, according to the government.
While Lukashenko’s followers waited for him at Sunday’s rally, many chanted his nickname “Batka” or “father.”
They also chanted “Maidan will take place,” referring to months of protests in Ukraine in 2013-14 that led then-President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country.Shortly after Yanukovych’s departure, Putin took the resolution to annex the entire Crimean peninsula to Ukraine, claiming a vast expanse of its Black Sea coast for Russia.
Lukashenko’s followers sought to notice the positive facets of his reign.
“Now everyone opposes Lukashenko and the president wants our support.Everyone has forgotten the smart things he’s done: there’s order in the country, we don’t have a starvation war,” said Tamara Yurshevich, a 35-year-old woman.old lawyer.
However, Belarus’s declining economy and Lukashenko’s rejection of the coronavirus pandemic as a “psychosis” are among the points that have galvanized the country’s maximum and sustained manifestations.
History through the Associated Press
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