'No sacrifices' - Belarusian dissident urges people to shun election, avoid protesting

Record ID: 1859192

  • Title: 'No sacrifices' - Belarusian dissident urges people to shun election, avoid protesting
  • Date: 27th November 2024
  • Summary: OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA (NOVEMBER 26, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BELARUS DISSIDENT, SVIATLANA TSIKHANOUSKAYA, SAYING: "First of all, we don't call it elections, in Belarus it's a ritual, it's all Soviet style type ritual. It's the reappointment of Lukashenko by Lukashenko himself. So, of course, is this event will not make Lukashenko legitimate in the eyes of Be
  • Embargoed: 11th December 2024 10:01
  • Keywords: Alexander Lukashenko Belarus Canada Ottawa Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: Canada
  • Topics: North America,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA001285526112024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition is advising people in the Eastern European nation not to protest against elections in January, saying the vote is a ritual designed to give false legitimacy to President Alexander Lukashenko.
    His election win in 2020 triggered unprecedented demonstrations by protesters accusing him of rigging the poll.
    Police quelled the protests and human rights groups say some 30,000 were detained for various periods of time.
    Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020 and later went into exile, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday (November 26) she feared a crackdown if people went out into the streets this time.
    The Belarus interior ministry last week said police would conduct drills ahead of the election to ensure that "manifestations of extremism and terrorism" were prevented.
    Lukashenko, 70, who has been in power in the ex-Soviet state since 1994 and is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is running for a seventh term in office on Jan 26.
    Tsikhanouskaya, who is now based in Lithuania and has a heavy security presence, called on the international community not to recognize the results and said democracies "might be braver", in particular by imposing more sanctions.
    Lukashenko and his supporters deny he has rigged elections and say that the overwhelming majority of voters back him for steering Belarus through the turmoil of the years following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
    Despite the police presence, and the fact that 500,000 people left the country of nine million after 2020, people are forming underground movements in acts of defiance against Lukashenko, she said.
    Tsikhanouskaya's husband Syarhei Tsikhanouski has been in jail since 2020 after being barred from taking part in the election that his wife contested instead.
    (Production: David Ljunggren, Kyaw Soe Oo,Gerardo Gomez)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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