Cities erupted Sunday night in cities in Belarus when rebel police used rubber bullets, flash grenades, tear gas and water cannon to protest the results of the contested presidential election.
Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 26 years, claimed he had won a landslide victory in an election march over accusations of vote-rigging. The election commission claimed that Lukashenko was ahead with 82% of the vote in preliminary results on Sunday night. The opposition, led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, had held some of the country’s largest political rallies since the days of the Soviet Union.
Major protests broke out soon after the elections in Minsk were closed, where a crowd of thousands gathered in the center of the capital. A Guardian reporter saw police using water cannons against Protestants and was fired by rubber bullets. Opponents of Lukashenko shouted: “Leave!” Police made dozens of arrests. In one video, an army truck appeared in protest.
Fighting was also reported in about 20 other cities, including Gomel and Vitebsk. In several smaller cities, however, it was reported that insurgent police refused to allow protesters to regret or withdraw.
“It is certainly the biggest protest I have ever seen in Belarus since Lukashenko came to power,” said David Marples, a professor at the University of Alberta and an expert on Belarus. “In terms of the elections that Lukashenko held, there has been nothing. It seems to me that the whole country is really in favor of change. ”
The decision to drop the protests violently has raised questions about the loyalty of Interior Ministry troops and whether Lukashenko’s own nerve could fail if he felt personally threatened by the protests.
‘We do not really know how brave he is. He has never been in a situation where he has to be brave, ”said Marples.
The state news agency, Belta, said police were “in control of the situation at unrestricted mass events”.
Tikhanovskaya’s campaign has stopped calling for street protests, and encouraging supporters to fight the elections by legal means.
Late Sunday night, Tikhanovskaya issued a call to riot police to stop attacks on Protestants and for an end to “provocations” by their own supporters. “I want to ask the militia and troops to remember that they are part of the people,” she said. “Please stop the violence.”
Her campaign claimed to win at a majority of the polling stations in Minsk.
When polls closed at 8 a.m., a state exit poll gave Lukashenko 79.7% of the vote and just 6.8% to Tikhanovskaya. An estimated 9.2% voted “against all”, according to the poll, a tradition dating back to the Soviet era.
The allegation of a nationwide vote appeared to increase the danger for Tikhanovskaya, who went into hiding on Saturday night after nine of her campaign staff were arrested. She came forward on Sunday to vote, but remained in a protective bubble of campaign staff and journalists, whom press secretary Anna Krasulina called “the most reliable defense we have”.
Tikhanovskaya, who launched the campaign after her husband was imprisoned, sent her children abroad after she said her life was threatened.
Andrei Yeliseyeu, director of the Warsaw-based EAST center, warned earlier in the evening that the apparent result, combined with claims of voting, “will shock the public”. “People are aware that Lukashenko did not present this impressive majority through the results of the poll,” he said.
Thousands of voters were left outside polling stations in Belarus and embassies after the government refused to extend voting hours after the 8-hour cut.
Earlier on Sunday night, a Guardian reporter encountered small groups of young people walking in the center of Minsk, where many streets were cordoned off by police to prevent a backlash against the election result.
One woman, referring to the large numbers of riot police in the city center, teased her: “Look how many there are, it’s like a football game! Stand like bunnies on every corner.”
The clashes with police were some of the largest in the history of the country. Photos of the protests showed field medicine treating protesters with bloody faces. An AP photographer was taken to hospital after he was knocked unconscious by riot police in a police car.
Lukashenko, who surprised her by saying that he is “the last dictator of Europe”, has consolidated immense power in Belarus in 26 Belarus and is seeking a sixth term in office.
Observers pointed to numbers of early votes as a likely sign of ballots, with nearly 40% of eligible Belarusians casting their ballots before polls opened on Sunday. Several polling stations ran out of ballots on Sunday because they appeared to have won over 100% of the eligible voters.
One video from a polling station appeared to show a member of the Election Commission climbing a ladder from a second-floor window with a bag assumed to contain ballot papers.
Voters from Pro-Tikhanovskaya said they wanted to see change, a popular slogan for the campaign, or thought Lukashenko had exaggerated his time in office. But many were pessimistic about the chances of the vote being honestly counted.
Zoya Vlasenko, a retired engineer, said she voted against Lukashenko for the sake of her grandchildren. “I do not want them to leave their homeland,” she said. Her eldest son has already left to work in the US. “But now there is hope that my grandchildren can stay here.”
Others said they were angry about the arrests of activists and the threat of violence against the opposition. There were already signs of a collapse in the run-up to the vote, as armored cars, water cannon and police were reported in the center of Minsk to the presidency board. Armed men were also seen at highway entrances to the city.
“There are armored cars on the highway, there are people not even in uniform, in jeans and T-shirts with guns in their hands,” said Vladimir, a local businessman who worked with his wife and son son came to the polling station. ‘It’s scary when you do not know if someone is a bandit or a member of legislature. I vote against being scared. ‘
Local journalists reported problems with Telegram, Twitter, Viber, WhatsApp, and websites linked to opposition parties and voting control platforms. Netblocks, a civil society group, said internet connection was “significantly disrupted in Belarus amid presidential elections”.
Nigel Gould-Davies, a former UK ambassador to Minsk, called the election a “dangerous farce” and said West Lukashenko would have to impose further sanctions. Referring to Tikhanovskaya’s campaign, he wrote: ‘What’s going on? #Belarus is the final phase of a major reorganization of European politics that began in 1989. “
Supporters of Tikhanovskaya have said that their campaign has transformed the country and would have a profound impact on the future of the country’s politics.
“People in this campaign have become more charged. They better understand what is happening, ”said Olga Kovalkova, one of Tikhanovskaya’s supervisors. “It is important. They are ready to fight with legal means. This process will not end on election day – it has just begun.”
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