Opposition in Belarus sets up council; Lukashenko decides to ‘try to gain power’

MINSK (Reuters) – The rising political opposition in Belarus on Tuesday set up a council in the country, dismissing a move by President Alexander Lukashenko in an attempt to seize power 10 days after an election that postponed mass demonstrations.

Many of Belarus’s main opposition figures are in prison as well as in exile, including presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country after the vote her supporters say she won.

Thousands of Protestants have taken to the streets, fearing a collapse by the authorities, to demand Lukashenko’s dismissal.

Olga Kovalkova, Tsikhanouskaya’s representative at a press conference to launch the new opposition council, said she expected Tsikhanouskaya to return to Minsk soon to act as guarantor in a negotiated transfer of power.

“We only operate through legal means,” Kovalkova said. “The situation is critical. The authorities have no choice but to enter into dialogue. The situation will only get worse. ”

Earlier, in a televised address to his top brass Security Council, Lukashenko described the planned opposition council as “an attempt to seize power” and promised “appropriate measures”.

Since official results declared him the election winner with 80% of the vote, Lukashenko seems to be underestimating the power of public anger in a country with economic hardship and an eponymy of coronavirus that he has dismissed. At least two Protestants have been killed and thousands detained.

There have been growing signs that the burly former Soviet collective farm boss is losing his grip on the land he has ruled for 26 years, with workers going on strike at state factories long seen as bastions of his support.

After videos appeared on the Internet showing some police officers throwing their uniforms in the rubbish bin, the Interior Ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that some police officers had been stopped.

“We will not assess the small proportion of police officers who have left the service today out of personal convictions,” it said in a statement. It pleaded for others to remain on their post, saying the public would be left unprotected if “the entire police force takes its badges today”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lukashenko awarded medals “for impeccable service” to lawmakers who had helped destroy Protestants.

Among senior figures to speak out against the government was Pavel Latushko, who served as ambassador to Poland, France and Spain under Lukashenko before becoming head of the country’s most prestigious state theater last year. He was fired after expressing his condolences to arrested Protestants.

“In every person’s life there is a line that can not be crossed,” he told Reuters on Tuesday in Minsk. ‘That moment came to me when I saw people coming out of prisons talking about the violence against them. I’m ashamed. ‘

The entire group of actors on Tuesday massacred in solidarity at Latushko’s Janka Kupala National Theater, where Culture Minister Yuri Bondar met her on stage. One by one, the actors dropped a letter of resignation and shouted “go away”. Hundreds of Protestants cheered as the actors marched.

SHAME

Tsikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old political novice who emerged as an unexpected consensus opposition candidate after better-known figures, including her activist husband, were jailed or barred from standing in the election, has called through it internet given to followers to stay afloat but remain peaceful.

“All this scandalous, unjustified lawlessness shows us how this rotten system works, where one person controls everything,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video on Tuesday. “One man has kept the country in fear for 26 years.”

For his part, Lukashenko says the protests are being provoked from abroad. The official Belta news agency published a video that protesters called “bought-and-sold junk, ready to sell their own mothers for $ 20”. Mr Lukashenko told the Security Council that the military’s warning went to the western border, describing “internal problems” as part of an external threat.

Attention is firmly focused on how Russia will respond to the biggest political crisis an ex-Soviet neighbor has had in Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow intervened militarily after a friendly leader was killed by public protests was.

Culturally, politically and economically, Belarus is the former Soviet republic with the closest ties to Russia, including a treaty proclaiming a “union state” of the two countries with a Soviet-style red flag. But Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko have had a difficult personal relationship.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Foreign Minister Charles Michel spoke to Putin by telephone on Tuesday. The Kremlin said Putin had warned all three against foreign mediation in Belarus’ affairs.

The EU is working together to impose new sanctions on Belarus officials. European diplomats say the situation in Belarus is different from Ukraine six years ago, in part because the Belarusian opposition is not necessarily trying to loosen ties with Russia, only to break free from Lukashenko.