Belarusians Clashed With Riot Police After Their “Dictator” President Claimed Victory

KYIV — Riot police violently suppressed hundreds of protesters who poured into the streets of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to problem the outcomes of Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus with an iron first for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory within the election, which was marred by accusations of vote-rigging. The Belarusian Central Election Commission stated preliminary outcomes indicated that he received 80% of the vote whereas his shock challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, completed second with simply 9%. Authorities didn’t permit any unbiased observers to observe 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 native media as saying. “We urge those who believe that their vote was stolen not to remain silent.”

She additionally stated she was ready to take a seat down with Lukashenko to debate the scenario. But Lukashenko, who was busy touring an agricultural facility and getting again to enterprise, didn’t reply to the request on Monday.

Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old former English trainer, rose from obscurity after the jailing of her would-be candidate husband, a preferred vlogger, to collect the most important political rallies in Belarus for the reason that fall of the Soviet Union. According to her and to unbiased native media experiences that printed paperwork with the tallies, a number of precincts in Minsk confirmed her with 70% to 80% of the vote. In one video from a polling station, an election fee member is seen climbing down a ladder from a second-story window and being handed a bag presumably stuffed with ballots.

Early Monday morning, Tikhanovskaya introduced that she wouldn’t concede to Lukashenko or acknowledge the votes.

Many hundreds of her supporters spilled into the streets of Minsk and several other different cities throughout the nation after polls closed Sunday night time. The protesters marched via Minsk with their cellphones illuminated within the night time sky earlier than tons of of armed safety forces — a lot of whom had been bussed into the capital earlier within the day — started dispersing them.

Videos and pictures shared by unbiased Belarusian information shops confirmed law enforcement officials hurling stun grenades and tear fuel canisters into the crowds whereas individuals chanted “Long live Belarus!” and “Go away!” and “This is our country!”

Police had been additionally seen firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and deploying water cannons and anti-riot automobiles to push the crowds again. Officers had been seen on video chasing down protesters and clubbing them with batons earlier than dragging some into vans and hauling them away. In some circumstances, officers had been briefly overrun by teams of protesters.

Meanwhile, authorities managed to limit internet access and cellphone service, and to take down unbiased information web sites, making it difficult for anybody to seek out details about the occasions and to speak.

As night time turned to early morning, the streets of Minsk had been coated in blood, and tear fuel hung within the air. Reports stated more than 3,000 protesters had been detained by police and jailed. The human rights group Viasna reported that no less than one protester died after sustaining mind accidents when a police truck ran him over. Several others had been being handled for quite a lot of wounds inflicted by police. An Associated Press photographer was reportedly detained and crushed unconscious behind a police van.

Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 39 legislation enforcement officers and greater than 50 protesters had been wounded in all.

Clashes had been additionally reported in some 20 different cities, together with Grodno and Brest within the nation’s west. But in a few of the smaller cities, riot police had been reported to have refused to crack down on protesters. Videos shared on-line confirmed one group retreating and one other placing down their shields. A protester is seen in a single video approaching an officer and hugging him.

Overnight, Tikhanovskaya referred to as on police forces to instantly halt assaults on demonstrators and for her supporters to cease any provocative actions. “I want to ask the militia and troops to remember that they are part of the people,” she stated. “Please, stop the violence.”

Tikhanovskaya was a part of an all-woman trio of political novices who managed to seize Belarusians’ creativeness with a promise of change and three easy hand gestures which have turn into symbols of hope for individuals bored with Lukashenko: ✌️✊❤️. The girls did so after a number of male candidates had been barred from operating and Lukashenko allowed Tikhanovskaya to register — one thing that now seems to have been a giant political miscalculation.

Veronika Tsepkalo, one of many trio and a marketing campaign adviser for Tikhanovskaya, advised BuzzFeed News that she believed Lukashenko underestimated the potential of a girl candidate.

Famously often known as “Europe’s Last Dictator,” Lukashenko has received 5 earlier elections, though solely the primary one in 1994 was dominated free and honest by unbiased observers. He loved sturdy assist from Belarusians for years, primarily due to financial stability. But that assist appeared to return to an finish in current months because of egregious human rights abuses, a stagnant financial system, and his failure to correctly deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has ripped via the inhabitants of 9.5 million.

While Lukashenko seems to be to maneuver on, Tikhanovskaya’s chief of workers, Maria Kolesnikova, stated on Monday that their group was prepared for a protracted protest. And the candidate herself stated she would do the whole lot potential to overturn the outcomes.