Belarusian opposition politicians Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has called for more mass protests against the 26-year rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, while also announcing that she would not run for president if fresh elections are held.
Tikhanovskaya, who became Lukashenko’s rival in the August 9 elections, in which he was declared the winner, fled to the polling station in Lithuania.
She emerged from obscurity to take her husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski’s place in the election campaign after he was imprisoned in May.
“I do not intend to run myself,” Tikhanovskaya said in an interview with Belsat TV when asked if she or her husband, a well-known video blogger, would run for the presidency.
Earlier this week, Tikhanovskaya said she was ready to lead Belarus and called for the creation of a legal mechanism to ensure a new fair presidential election could be held.
“More than enough,” added Tikhanovskaya, who has led some of the biggest protests against Lukashenko since coming to power with the fall of the Soviet Union, when asked if she had had enough of politics. .
After the election results were announced, mass protests against Lukashenko broke out, and he was accused of rigging the elections.
‘Never again’
In a separate news conference on Saturday, her first public remarks since fleeing to Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya said Belarus “will never assume the current leadership”.
“The future of Belarus, and therefore the future of our children, now depends on your unity and your determination. I ask that you – go ahead and expand the strikes. Do not be fooled by intimidation. United,” she added. ta.
She also said the release of political prisoners is one of the demands of Protestants and “new honest transparent elections can restore justice”.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Lukashenko ordered his defense minister to take “strict measures” to defend the country’s territorial integrity against mass protests.
He made the remarks during an inspection of military units in Grodno, near Belarus’s border with Poland, according to the president’s press service.
Lukashenko dismissed the recent demonstrations, saying he had received support from Western countries, and ordered the army to defend Western Belarus, which he described as “a pearl”.
“It is about taking the most stringent measures to protect the territorial integrity of our country,” Lukashenko said.
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