MINSK (Reuters) – Belarussian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya said on Tuesday she had fled abroad for the sake of her children, after two nights of clashes following the contested re-election of strongman President Alexander Lukashenko.
Tikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher, came out of obscurity to reach the biggest challenge in years to Lukashenko, and took her husband’s place in the campaign after he was imprisoned.
“You know, I thought this whole campaign was really hard on me and gave me so much power that I could do anything,” she said, explaining her decision in a grim video released on her husband’s YouTube channel.
‘But after all, I’m still the weak woman I was in the first place. I have made a very difficult decision for myself. ”
Both she and the Belarusian authorities said she was not forced to leave.
There were concerns about Tikhanouskaya’s stay after her campaign team said on Monday that they could not reach her by phone hours after it was announced that she was leaving a meeting with central election commission officials.
By Tuesday morning, she had joined her children in Lithuania. The state border commission later confirmed her departure.
‘And I know that many people will understand me, many will judge me and many will hate me. But, you know, God forbid being with such a choice as what I stood for, ‘she said.
‘So folks, please take care – no life is worth what’s going on right now. Children are the most important thing in our lives. ”
At least one person died when police clashed with Protestants on Monday after the opposition accused Lukashenko of voting in the midst of widespread criticism from Western leaders.
Helmet police fired trace gases, rubber bullets and stun grenades and used batons to disperse thousands of people in Minsk in a second night of violence. Protesters set up barricades in various areas and threw petrol bombs.
Local media reported clashes in other cities.
In power for more than a quarter of a century, Lukashenko has compared Protestants to criminal gangs and dangerous revolutionaries with shadows of foreign supporters.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the election was “not free and fair” and condemned “continuing violence against Protestants and holding opposition rallies”.
Foreign observers have not ruled in favor of free and fair elections in Belarus since 1995, and in the run-up to this month’s vote, authorities saw Lukashenko’s rivals and open criminal investigations by others who opposed the election.
Tikhanouskaya’s campaign rallies drew some of the largest crowds since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. She was initially intolerable to stand, and said she received an anonymous threat from her children.
She had moved them abroad during the campaign.
Her husband, Syarhei, had popularized a protest movement that likened Lukashenko to a cockroach character from a fairy tale of children. He was arrested in May.
Additional report by Alexander Marrow in Moscow and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; written by Matthias Williams; edited by John Stonestreet, Giles Elgood and Nick Macfie
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