Belarus: Just a prelude to November or another bad result for 10 millions Belarusians?

Politics & News
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Once upon a time there was a dictator named Alexander Lukashenko who just loved fashionable headgear - the bigger the better:

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For the past 26 years, Belarus has been his personal fiefdom. Often referred to as Europe’s last dictator, Lukashenko has maintained a tight grip on power by retaining much from the country’s Soviet past.

In July 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected president of Belarus with 80 percent of the vote against the communist leader Vyacheslav Kebic.

Belarusians had voted against the old communist establishment.

By and large, he adopted the program of the communists that he had defeated, and they soon closed ranks behind him. Lukashenko’s political agenda consisted of three main elements:

  1. The restoration of the old Soviet economic system with only marginal market economic elements

  2. Gradually increase of political repression

  3. Close political relations with Russia

Lukashenko has maintained political power ever since through strong state control of the economy, control over the media, and as much repression as the situation has demanded including political murders and the imprisonment of political opponents. He has had numerous opposition candidates arrested just for the crime of running against him.

Enter our hero, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

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This charasmatic woman was brave enough to throw her hat into the ring despite the peril and all hell has broken loose as official exit polls on election night are being accused of being fraudulent by Belorussians. Mass protests and civil unrest are now shaking the country to its core.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/celticpirate1/status/1292778962289070086

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Yeah this won’t work. There was a protest in 2011. Another in 2015. Another in 2017. None of them worked.

This is just another day for this guy. He isn’t going anywhere.

Hell when AMLO lost his first run at the presidency in Mexico, his supporters protested for months non-stop. I fully expect the same to happen in America regardless of what happens.

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There’s a chance that the very real prospect of this happening in the country with the world’s largest economy and largest army will provoke more of a response from the Western countries that ostensibly are the standard bearers of democracy at this point.

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Disagree. 20-25% support is tiny. Eventually military turns on him or whatever and he gets Mubarak’ed IMO.

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After all the blowback from Bolivia, Western countries are probably going to be pretty hesitant to foment a coup in Belarus…

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Would’ve happened by now if that was the case.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1292876311237734400

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Maybe I’m missing a deadpan joke, in which case well played, but why would they think a few articles in the NYT are too big a price to pay?

I’d guess this is in part a new style ‘coup’. Belarus got a US ambassador for the first time recently and threatened to be more West friendly. Hard to imagine that and the fact it’s been on the news much more (i.e. at all) in the last few months are unrelated. It’s just at this point there’s every chance it’ll be more like Venezuela.

The playbook seems to be give whichever chancers you turn up a little bit of cash, a truck load of good publicity, a few manuals on taking advantage of discontent and hope they make it through. If not, no biggy, just better luck next time!

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It was mostly a joke. I think in both Bolivia and Belarus, the West has very little capacity to overthrow the regime, and whether the government is allowed to cheat at elections basically depends on whether or not the security forces are under the regime’s control or not.

I just found it funny that people are mad when a left dictatorship falls and blame a CIA-orchestrated coup, and then they also get mad when the US doesn’t orchestrate a coup against other dictators.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/XSovietNews/status/1292898183572586504

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Who is mad the US isn’t orchestrating a coup in Belarus?

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Agree they’re of a similar bent and cheering one and not the other is daft. I do think that the military (and other in country powers) can be at least indirectly influenced via influence operations. Those certainly contribute to coverage of the kind it’s getting now, and that will influence people in Belarus. That’s the point of the game, I think, as you’re certainly also right that until some pre-existing power gets in on the act not much will really change.

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Trump more likely to think that Belarus is a woman than a country.

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