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BELARUS

Tensions mount as President Lukashenko rejects rerunning vote

Published:Monday | August 17, 2020 | 12:12 AM
Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the centre of Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, August 16, 2020. Opposition supporters whose protests have convulsed the country for a week aim to hold a major march in the capital of Belarus. Protests began late on August 9
AP
Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the centre of Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, August 16, 2020. Opposition supporters whose protests have convulsed the country for a week aim to hold a major march in the capital of Belarus. Protests began late on August 9 at the closing of presidential elections.

MINSK (AP):

President Alexander Lukashenko, under pressure from massive protests that broke out after a questionable election that gave him a sixth term in a landslide, on Sunday vehemently rejected any possibility of holding a rerun of the vote.

Lukashenko spoke at a rally of thousands of government supporters near the main government building in Minsk, the capital, while large crowds streamed towards the site of an opposition rally 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) away, the ninth straight day of anti-government rallies.

The authoritarian president has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron fist since 1994, repressing opposition figures and independent news media. But this year, fed up with the country’s declining living standards and Lukashenko’s dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, sustained anti-government protests before and after the August 9 presidential election have posed the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule.

MASSIVE FRAUD

On Sunday, the 65-year-old Lukashenko accused Western powers of interfering in his country’s sovereignty. He claimed they were gathering military units in countries along Belarus’ western borders and denounced suggestions by some Western nations that Belarus should rerun its August 9 presidential vote, which opposition supporters say gave Lukashenko a victory only through massive fraud.

“If we follow their lead (and rerun the election), we will perish as a state,” Lukashenko declared Sunday, a day after saying he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed that Russia would send unspecified security assistance to Belarus if Lukashenko asked for it.

In previous months, Lukashenko had warned that Putin had wanted to take over Belarus, a nation of 9.5 million people in Eastern Europe that has a long border with Russia.

As Lukashenko invoked fears of Western military designs on Belarus, the Collective Treaty Security Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states including Belarus, said Sunday it would make a decision about providing assistance if Belarus requested it.

Election officials said last week that Lukashenko won a sixth term with about 80% of the vote. Protesters claim the election was a sham and allege results were manipulated.