On Tuesday, President Alexander Lukashenko’s administration jailed two opposition leaders for 10 days over the recent uprisings where protesters alleged Lukashenko, who has been in power since 26 years, of swindling votes in Belarus’s 2020 elections.
After Alexander Lukashenko’s victory in the presidential election, there have been massive violent clashes by the protesters in Minsk.
Fresh protests on Tuesday involved schoolteachers leading protests of thousands against President Lukashenko at the ministry of education. The teachers took to streets to stand against Lukashenko threat of sacking schoolteachers who do not support his administration.
After more than two weeks of uprising post-elections, which oppositions say were rigged, and despite the fact that major opposition figures are in jail or in exile, Lukashenko has so far failed to stop the protests against his election win.
Rallies during the two weeks have seen over thousands of protesters take to streets while the numbers increased over tens of thousands on weekends.
Olga Kovalkova, the main representative still in Belarus of the opposition candidate, and Siarhei Dyleuski, who has led strikes, were brought to separate courts where they were each jailed for 10 days.
Lukashenko has rebutted the allegations of cheating during the election, called the protesters “rats”, and claimed that they are being funded from abroad.
Currently, Russia’s closet ally from all former Soviet republics is Belarus, which makes it likely that Lukashenko’s fate might be in the hands of Russian President Putin.
Countries in the west have to approach the situation in Belarus by maintaining the balance for a Belarusian pro-democracy movement and keeping in mind that strong support would lead to a Russian-backed crackdown.
Alexander Lukashenko’s 2020 election’s opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania citing her children’s safety. Tikhanouskaya’s campaign rallies drew some of the biggest crowds since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is important to note that foreign observers have not judged an election to be free and fair in Belarus since 1995, and the run-up to this month’s vote saw authorities jail Lukashenko’s rivals and open criminal investigations of others who voiced opposition.