A government spokeswoman said large state factories were operating normally. People in Minsk are forming human “chains of solidarity” in various places in support of the ultimatum that the opposition gave to President Alexander Lukashenko until Sunday, when he was due to resign. According to eyewitnesses, the police are arresting the protesters, the Russian agency TASS said. According to her, mainly students demonstrate and strike.
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Workers from large chemical plants in Grodno and the Minsk companies MZKT and MTZ refused to start work. However, the police came to these companies and arrested an unspecified number of workers, the Belorusskij partizan server said. According to the portal, people send pictures of empty workshops to social networks and claim that employees have not started working. “Of course, this information needs to be verified, but it is clear that many have heard the ultimatum and the call to strike,” the opposition server wrote.
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According to TASS, the state concern Belněftěchim assured that Azot Grodno and other companies of the group function normally. Likewise, reports of a strike were denied by the Minsk plant for the production of MTZ tractors.
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“All production plants are operating normally as of 10 o’clock in the morning (9:00 CET). The production did not stop, “assured the spokesman of the Belarusian Prime Minister. “We have no information about strikes, large companies are operating normally,” the Ministry of Industry said.
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Hundreds of smaller companies and shops, according to the Tut.by server, would give their employees time off today: some companies did so due to possible difficulties, others as a sign of solidarity.
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The ultimatum given by the opposition leader Sviatlana Cichanouska from exile expired on Sunday. He demands that Lukashenko resign, and that the regime release all political prisoners and call new presidential elections. Otherwise, according to Cichanouská, a general strike will begin from today.
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Commentators point out that the opposition has tried to provoke strikes in previous months, but the regime has been able to suppress this form of protest by imprisoning members of strike committees and interviewing company management with workers.
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Lukashenko’s refusal to end up in office after 26 years will test whether the opposition has mass support. It needs to stop businesses across the country, which has a population of about 9.5 million, Reuters reported. She added that it is not yet clear how the protest spread. Nevertheless, 11 weeks after the disputed presidential election on August 9, the winner of which Lukashenko again announced, the crisis in this former Soviet republic has entered a new phase.
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