On August 9, Presidential Election Day, clashes broke out in Belarus when insurgent police used rubber bullets, flash grenades, tear gas and water cannon to quell protests. Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 26 years, claimed he had won a landslide victory in an election assassination by accusations of vote-rigging. The Election Commission announced the other day that it had taken 80.23% of the vote, while its main opposition challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has held some of the largest political rallies since the days of the Soviet Union, but had 9.9%.
Hanna Lubakova, a Belarusian journalist, tells Rachel Humphreys what it has been like the coverage of the protests in recent days, while the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, discusses how Lukashenko has remained in power for so long. Meanwhile, Tikhanovskaya went to Lithuania. Focal critics of the government said she had been expelled, pointing to a trend, dating back more than a decade, of putting pressure on opposition politicians and their families.
Photo: Jan Graczynski / East News / REX / Shutterstock
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