More than 100 days have now passed since the highly contested re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, and the start of the huge street protests against his government. Although many things have happened in this period, everything is at a standstill in Belarus: Lukashenko has managed to keep power thanks to the support of Russia, the opposition has obtained the support of the European Union which, however, has not gone beyond the imposition of sanctions , and the Belarusian security forces continued to crack down on protesters, arresting thousands and killing three. And for the moment there doesn’t seem to be a solution to the crisis.
The protests began soon after the elections on 9 August, when Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus authoritatively since 1994, claimed he had won an unlikely 80% of the vote.
In recent months, hundreds of thousands of people have protested against the president, accusing him of having “stolen” the elections and of having ordered a harsh crackdown on demonstrators. Since the start of the protests, around 17,000 people have been arrested, hundreds have been beaten by security forces both in the capital Minsk and in other Belarusian cities, and four people seem to have been killed. The last one died on 12 November, after being beaten by the police: her name was Raman Bandarenka, he was an artist and he was 31 years old.
Belarusian policemen during an anti-government demonstration in Minsk on November 15 (AP Photo)
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So far, despite the support of the European Union, the Belarusian opposition has failed to find a way to prevail over the Lukashenko regime; at the same time not even Russia, which he wanted to replace Lukashenko with another more popular politician but still loyal to the Moscow government, she managed to find a credible alternative.
In fact, in the last 26 years in power, Lukashenko has created a vacuum around him: he has arrested his main opponents and his potential successors, and has kept the powers of parliament very reduced. Rumen Dobrinsky, of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, he told euronews that “the supporters of the protests do not seem to have real political weight and most likely could only deal with the transition of power.”
Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya, who came second in the elections on 9 August, is in exile in Lithuania, after having left Belarus for fear of retaliation from the regime: her capacity for action is rather limited, despite being the head of a coordinating council that brings together opponents and representatives of civil society. Furthermore, Tikhanovskaya has no political experience, and it is unclear what his agenda is if he should become president. It seems that she herself has repeatedly said that she wants to lead the country only during the transition with the aim of organizing new elections, free and democratic, but without the intention of re-running.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Vilnius, in Lithuania (AP Photo / Mindaugas Kulbis)
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An alternative would be Viktar Babaryk, a banker who was considered Lukashenko’s main rival before the elections, but who was excluded from the candidate list by the regime-controlled electoral commission. The problem is that Babaryk, as well as several other opponents, was arrested and is still in prison.
Ales Kirkievicz, journalist, writer and member of the Belarusian People’s Front, said that the weakness of the opposition is why “many people, including Tikhanovskaya, are talking about changing tactics. […] The authorities are not ready for a dialogue carried out on the terms dictated by the opposition, and the opposition can offer nothing more than mass protests. We are in a blind alley ».
Last Sunday it was umpteenth great events in several Belarusian cities, despite the government repression. The Belarusian Interior Ministry said 700 people were arrested across the country, although Viasna, a human rights organization, spoke of 1,291 arrests. The latest developments have prompted the European Union to threaten new sanctions against the regime, but for now there are no short-term solutions to overcome this stalemate.
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