Thousands of Belarussians have taken to the streets since Sunday, with polls showing Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, receiving 80 percent of the vote.
Opposition groups called for a boycott of the referendum, calling for a boycott of Lukashenko’s polls. . Many now demand a repeat.
At least 50 journalists have also been detained as injured during street protests, Belarus’s Press Association said in a statement Wednesday.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned the violence in a statement on Wednesday, saying “the use of force during protests should always be exceptional and a last resort measure, clearly distinguished between any violent person and peaceful Protestant, against who should not use force. “
Lukashenko has downplayed allegations of violent shrinkage on his opponents. He said he still enjoyed widespread support and warned Belarusians not to attend unrestricted meetings.
But his opponents say otherwise.
Two say they were forced out of Belarus because of government threats. Tikhanovskay, who stood for her husband as a candidate for opposition after he was imprisoned in the run-up to the vote, fled the country earlier this week. Her campaign told CNN on Sunday that nine people associated with the campaign had been arrested, and her decision to leave was made in part to free her peers.
A representative for Tikhanovskay, Olga Kovalkova, told Belarusian outlet TUT.BY on Tuesday that Tikhanovskaya “had no choice”, saying that part of the opposition candidate’s team was still being “held hostage.”
Tikhanovskay and her children are now in neighboring Lithuania, which has offered to mediate the dispute.
Protests have been reported in dozens of cities and towns, but most of the arrests took place in the capital Minsk, where on Monday night key ring roads and streets were blocked by protesters and police deployed tear gas and rubber bullets to riot. spread.
Analysts said the level of police violence against Protestants was unchanged.
“They used water cannons, stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas,” Alex Kokcharov, a political risk analyst at IHS Markit, which specializes in Belarus, told CNN. “I think the response from the police is to cause some casualties, such as injuries, which would demotivate many people from attending the protests.”
“Lukashenko enjoys broad support from the country’s elites, but what would” crack “them is widespread civil disobedience movement such as long-term employment in state-owned enterprises and transportation networks,” Kokcharov added.
Prominent Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova, the last of three women to become the face of the country’s opposition still in the country, told CNN she thinks the clashes are disputed election results signal the decline of Lukashenko’s long-term presidency.
“He is already lost. He has to accept that the people of Belarus do not like him and not that he remains the president of Belarus,” Kolesnikova said.
Kolesnikova, Tikhanovskaya and a third woman, Veronika Tsepkalo, came together to run Lukashenko in the election, after several opposition candidates were also released from running or imprisoned. Lukashenko dismissed them as “poor girls” in his annual statement from the union last week, saying he “would not give up the country.”
But the trio appeared to enjoy significant support. The Tikhanovskaya campaign rallies saw important missions, even in small Belarusian cities not known for their protest activity. Some 63,000 people attended the largest event in Minsk in July – making it the largest demonstration in decades.
CNN’s Joshua Berlinger and Tara John contributed to this report.
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