UPDATE
Belarusians Clashed With Riot Police After Their “Dictator” President Claimed Victory
President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed a sixth election victory. But his incumbent challenger, a former English teacher, said she won’t recognize the results.
Christopher Miller BuzzFeed News Contributor
Posted on August 10, 2020, at 6:38 a.m. E
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
A law enforcement officer gestures next to a man laying on the ground during clashes with opposition supporters in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday.
KYIV — Riot police violently suppressed thousands of protesters who poured into the streets of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to challenge the results of Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron first for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory in the election, which was marred by accusations of vote-rigging. The Belarusian Central Election Commission said preliminary results indicated that he won 80% of the vote while his surprise challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, finished second with just 9%. Authorities did not allow any independent observers to monitor the vote.
But on Monday, Tikhanovskaya claimed victory for herself. “We do not recognize the election results. We saw real ballots,” she was quoted by local media as saying. “We urge those who believe that his vote was stolen not to remain silent.”
She also said she was prepared to sit down with Lukashenko to discuss the situation. But Lukashenko, who was busy touring an agricultural facility and getting back to business, did not respond to the request on Monday.
Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher and homemaker, rose from obscurity after the jailing of her would-be candidate husband, a popular vlogger, to gather the largest political rallies in Belarus since the fall of the Soviet Union. According to her and to independent local media reports that published documents with the tallies, several precincts in Minsk showed her with 70% to 80% of the vote. In one video from a polling station, an election commission member is seen climbing down a ladder from a second-story window and being handed a bag presumably full of ballots.
Early Monday morning, Tikhanovskaya announced that she would not concede to Lukashenko or recognize the votes.
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Protesters lock arms in the streets of Minsk.
Many thousands of her supporters spilled into the streets of Minsk and several other cities across the country after polls closed Sunday night. The protesters marched through Minsk with their cellphones illuminated in the night sky before hundreds of armed security forces — many of whom had been bussed into the capital earlier in the day — began dispersing them.
Videos and photographs shared by independent Belarusian news outlets showed police officers hurling stun grenades and tear gas canisters into the crowds while people chanted “Long live Belarus!” and “Go away!” and “This is our country!”
Белсат TV@Belsat_TV
Стэла. Менск. Абстрэл пратэстуючых. Відэа калегаў з Радыё Свабода @svaboda10:05 PM - 09 Aug 2020
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Police were also seen firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and deploying water cannons and anti-riot vehicles to push the crowds back. Officers were seen on video chasing down protesters and clubbing them with batons before dragging some into vans and hauling them away. In some cases, officers were briefly overrun by groups of protesters.
TUT.BY@tutby
Минск сегодня вечером: ряды ОМОНа со щитами, водометы, светошумовые гранаты.10:05 PM - 09 Aug 2020
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Meanwhile, authorities managed to limit internet access and cellphone service, and to take down independent news websites, making it difficult for anyone to find information about the events and to communicate.
As night turned to early morning, the streets of Minsk were covered in blood, and tear gas hung in the air. Reports said more than 3,000 protesters had been detained by police and jailed. The human rights group Viasna reported that at least one protester died after sustaining brain injuries when a police truck ran him over. Several others were being treated for a variety of wounds inflicted by police. An Associated Press photographer was reportedly detained and beaten unconscious in the back of a police van.
Siarhei Leskiec / Getty Images
Riot police disperse protesters.
Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 39 law enforcement officers and more than 50 protesters had been wounded in all.
Clashes were also reported in some 20 other cities, including Grodno and Brest in the country’s west. But in some of the smaller cities, riot police were reported to have refused to crack down on protesters. Videos shared online showed one group retreating and another putting down their shields. A protester is seen in one video approaching an officer and hugging him.
Overnight, Tikhanovskaya called on police forces to immediately halt attacks on demonstrators and for her supporters to stop any provocative actions. “I want to ask the militia and troops to remember that they are part of the people,” she said. “Please, stop the violence.”
Sergei Gapon / Getty Images
Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya holds a press conference on Monday, the day after Belarus' presidential election.
Tikhanovskaya was part of an all-woman trio of political novices who managed to capture Belarusians’ imagination with a promise of change and three simple hand gestures that have become symbols of hope for people tired of Lukashenko: ✌️✊❤️. The women did so after several male candidates were barred from running and Lukashenko allowed Tikhanovskaya to register — something that now appears to have been a big political miscalculation.
Veronika Tsepkalo, one of the trio and a campaign advisor for Tikhanovskaya, told BuzzFeed News that she believed Lukashenko underestimated the potential of a female candidate.
Famously known as “Europe’s Last Dictator,” Lukashenko has won five previous elections, although only the first one in 1994 was ruled free and fair by independent observers. He enjoyed strong support from Belarusians for years, mainly thanks to economic stability. But that support seemed to come to an end in recent months due to egregious human rights abuses, a stagnant economy, and his failure to properly handle the coronavirus pandemic, which has ripped through the population of 9.5 million.
While Lukashenko looks to move on, Tikhanovskaya’s chief of staff, Maria Kolesnikova, said on Monday that their team was ready for a long protest. And the candidate herself said she would do everything possible to overturn the results.
MORE ON THIS
Massive Crowds Are Rallying Around This 37-Year-Old Woman Trying To Oust “Europe’s Last Dictator”
Posted on August 10, 2020, at 6:38 a.m. E
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
A law enforcement officer gestures next to a man laying on the ground during clashes with opposition supporters in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday.
KYIV — Riot police violently suppressed thousands of protesters who poured into the streets of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to challenge the results of Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron first for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory in the election, which was marred by accusations of vote-rigging. The Belarusian Central Election Commission said preliminary results indicated that he won 80% of the vote while his surprise challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, finished second with just 9%. Authorities did not allow any independent observers to monitor the vote.
But on Monday, Tikhanovskaya claimed victory for herself. “We do not recognize the election results. We saw real ballots,” she was quoted by local media as saying. “We urge those who believe that his vote was stolen not to remain silent.”
She also said she was prepared to sit down with Lukashenko to discuss the situation. But Lukashenko, who was busy touring an agricultural facility and getting back to business, did not respond to the request on Monday.
Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher and homemaker, rose from obscurity after the jailing of her would-be candidate husband, a popular vlogger, to gather the largest political rallies in Belarus since the fall of the Soviet Union. According to her and to independent local media reports that published documents with the tallies, several precincts in Minsk showed her with 70% to 80% of the vote. In one video from a polling station, an election commission member is seen climbing down a ladder from a second-story window and being handed a bag presumably full of ballots.
Early Monday morning, Tikhanovskaya announced that she would not concede to Lukashenko or recognize the votes.
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Protesters lock arms in the streets of Minsk.
Many thousands of her supporters spilled into the streets of Minsk and several other cities across the country after polls closed Sunday night. The protesters marched through Minsk with their cellphones illuminated in the night sky before hundreds of armed security forces — many of whom had been bussed into the capital earlier in the day — began dispersing them.
Videos and photographs shared by independent Belarusian news outlets showed police officers hurling stun grenades and tear gas canisters into the crowds while people chanted “Long live Belarus!” and “Go away!” and “This is our country!”
Белсат TV@Belsat_TV
Стэла. Менск. Абстрэл пратэстуючых. Відэа калегаў з Радыё Свабода @svaboda10:05 PM - 09 Aug 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite
Police were also seen firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and deploying water cannons and anti-riot vehicles to push the crowds back. Officers were seen on video chasing down protesters and clubbing them with batons before dragging some into vans and hauling them away. In some cases, officers were briefly overrun by groups of protesters.
TUT.BY@tutby
Минск сегодня вечером: ряды ОМОНа со щитами, водометы, светошумовые гранаты.10:05 PM - 09 Aug 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite
Meanwhile, authorities managed to limit internet access and cellphone service, and to take down independent news websites, making it difficult for anyone to find information about the events and to communicate.
As night turned to early morning, the streets of Minsk were covered in blood, and tear gas hung in the air. Reports said more than 3,000 protesters had been detained by police and jailed. The human rights group Viasna reported that at least one protester died after sustaining brain injuries when a police truck ran him over. Several others were being treated for a variety of wounds inflicted by police. An Associated Press photographer was reportedly detained and beaten unconscious in the back of a police van.
Siarhei Leskiec / Getty Images
Riot police disperse protesters.
Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 39 law enforcement officers and more than 50 protesters had been wounded in all.
Clashes were also reported in some 20 other cities, including Grodno and Brest in the country’s west. But in some of the smaller cities, riot police were reported to have refused to crack down on protesters. Videos shared online showed one group retreating and another putting down their shields. A protester is seen in one video approaching an officer and hugging him.
Overnight, Tikhanovskaya called on police forces to immediately halt attacks on demonstrators and for her supporters to stop any provocative actions. “I want to ask the militia and troops to remember that they are part of the people,” she said. “Please, stop the violence.”
Sergei Gapon / Getty Images
Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya holds a press conference on Monday, the day after Belarus' presidential election.
Tikhanovskaya was part of an all-woman trio of political novices who managed to capture Belarusians’ imagination with a promise of change and three simple hand gestures that have become symbols of hope for people tired of Lukashenko: ✌️✊❤️. The women did so after several male candidates were barred from running and Lukashenko allowed Tikhanovskaya to register — something that now appears to have been a big political miscalculation.
Veronika Tsepkalo, one of the trio and a campaign advisor for Tikhanovskaya, told BuzzFeed News that she believed Lukashenko underestimated the potential of a female candidate.
Famously known as “Europe’s Last Dictator,” Lukashenko has won five previous elections, although only the first one in 1994 was ruled free and fair by independent observers. He enjoyed strong support from Belarusians for years, mainly thanks to economic stability. But that support seemed to come to an end in recent months due to egregious human rights abuses, a stagnant economy, and his failure to properly handle the coronavirus pandemic, which has ripped through the population of 9.5 million.
While Lukashenko looks to move on, Tikhanovskaya’s chief of staff, Maria Kolesnikova, said on Monday that their team was ready for a long protest. And the candidate herself said she would do everything possible to overturn the results.
Massive Crowds Are Rallying Around This 37-Year-Old Woman Trying To Oust “Europe’s Last Dictator”
Christopher Miller · Aug. 7, 2020
Christopher Miller · Aug. 7, 2020
Christopher Miller is a Kyiv-based American journalist and editor.
Police, protesters clash in Belarus as election poll says Lukashenko wins 6th term
A demonstrator stands in front of riot police during a protest after polling stations closed in the presidential elections, in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday. Photo by Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE
Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Protesters and riot police clashed in Belarus as demonstrators took to the streets in opposition to early exit polls that indicate incumbent President Aleksandr Lukashenko would handily win a sixth term at the country's helm.
Election officials late Sunday released exit poll data showing that the authoritarian president had secured nearly 80% of the vote to main opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's 6.8%
The opposition has previously expressed worries the election would be rigged, and Tikhanovskaya told reporters during a press conference after the poll was released that she does not accept the tally.
"I believe my eyes, and I see that the majority is with us," she said.
Lidia Yermoshina, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, said based on preliminary estimates from Sunday's vote that nearly 5.8 million people, or 84.23% of eligible voters, cast a ballot in the election, state-run Belta news agency reported.
The tally, she said, will be double-checked but "I don't think that they will change dramatically."
In the capital of Minsk, riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons Sunday night to disperse protesters, some of who were injured, Viasna, a human rights organization in Belarus, said in a statement, adding at least 70 protesters were arrested
In the weeks before the election, human rights organizations warned of ongoing arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters, journalists and bloggers.
"Belarusian authorities are using flimsy pretexts to silence journalists and critics, which should never happen, but that has even more damning consequences for citizens' rights in an election period," Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a late July statement. "The international community should not ignore such serious flouting of human rights obligations."
Since May, Viasna has reported that more than 1,000 people have been arbitrarily arrested, including Tikhanovskaya's husband, Sergey Tikhanovskaya, a YouTube blogger and former presidential candidate.
Following his arrest, Tikhanovskaya, 37, took her husband's place on the ballot, the BBC reported.
A day before the election, Viasna reported that Tikhanovskaya's campaign manager, Maryia Maroz, was also detained though the charges had yet to be announced.
Lukashenko was first elected to the country's highest office in 1994.
Belarus’ leader wins sixth term with over 80% of votes
1 of 27 https://apnews.com/9a9a4324a3c6a913ac6cc0abaedcc342
Protesters carry a wounded man during clashes with police after the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, early Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. Police and protesters clashed in Belarus' capital and the major city of Brest on Sunday after the presidential election in which the authoritarian leader who has ruled for a quarter-century sought a sixth term in office. (AP Photo)
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Election officials in Belarus said Monday that President Alexander Lukashenko has won his sixth consecutive term, taking over 80% of the vote amid protests fueled by frustration with the country’s deteriorating economy, years of political repression and the authoritarian incumbent’s cavalier brushoff of the coronavirus threat.
Human rights groups said one person was killed — which the authorities denied — and dozens were injured in a police crackdown on protests that followed Sunday’s presidential election.
The country’s central election commission said that with all ballots counted, Lukashenko, who has led Belarus for 26 years, took 80.23% of the vote and his main opposition challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had only 9.9%.
Opposition supporters believe the election results were rigged and plan to gather in Minsk for more protests on Monday evening.
“We don’t recognize these results,” Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, told reporters Monday.
“According to the data we receive from precincts, we won, and this corresponds with what we saw at polling stations,” she said. “People stood in lines at polling stations in order to vote for Tsikhanouskaya. I believe my own eyes rather than the data of the central election commission.”
Thousands of people took to the streets in a number of Belarusian cities and towns on Sunday night, protesting the early count suggesting Lukashenko’s landslide victory. They faced rows of riot police in black uniforms who moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.
The brutal crackdown followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron fist for 26 years. Lukashenko has not yet commented on the results or the protests, only saying on Monday that “the people” should be the cornerstone of any politics, according to the state news agency Belta.
According to the Viasna human rights group, more than 200 protesters were detained, dozens sustained injuries and one died as the result of the clashes with police.
The Interior Ministry said Monday no one was killed during the protests and called reports about a fatality “an absolute fake.” According to officials, 89 people were injured during the protests, including 39 law enforcement officers, and some 3,000 people were detained.
On Monday morning, Belarus’ Investigative Committee opened a criminal probe into mass riots and violence toward police officers.
BLAMING THE PROTESTERS DEFENDING POLICE BRUTALITY
“What has happened is awful,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters Sunday.
An AP journalist was beaten by police and treated at a hospital.
At Minsk’s Hospital No. 10, an AP reporter saw a dozen ambulances delivering protesters with fragmentation wounds and cuts from stun grenades and other injuries.
European officials urged Belarusian authorities to adhere to standards of democracy and respect the people’s civil rights on Sunday.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told the BNS news agency on Monday that “it’s difficult to call this election transparent, democratic and free, regrettably.” Poland’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday morning saying that “the harsh reaction of the law enforcement forces, the use of force against peaceful protesters, and arbitrary arrests are unacceptable.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the meantime, congratulated Lukashenko on his win on Monday, and so did the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The results of the vote “indicate the popular support” of Lukashenko’s rule, Tokayev said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Facebook post Monday it was “obvious that not everyone in the country agrees with the announced preliminary election results. And, as we know, any legitimacy arises solely from public trust,” urging Minsk to refrain from violence and calling for dialogue with the opposition.
Two prominent opposition challengers were denied places on the ballot, but Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, managed to unite opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies, tapping growing anger over a stagnant economy and fatigue with Lukashenko’s autocratic rule.
Lukashenko was defiant as he voted earlier in the day, warning that the opposition will meet a tough response.
“If you provoke, you will get the same answer,” he said. “Do you want to try to overthrow the government, break something, wound, offend, and expect me or someone to kneel in front of you and kiss them and the sand onto which you wandered? This will not happen.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send observers.
Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping into public frustration with a worsening economy and Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic.
Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths but critics have accused authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.
Lukashenko has dismissed the virus as “psychosis” and declined to apply measures to stop its spread, saying a lockdown would have doomed the already weak economy. He announced last month that he had been infected but had no symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to playing sports.
___
Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov and Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed to this story.
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