Belarus on the brink
At a Glance
25-08-2020
As usual in Belarus, the 9 August presidential election was marred by fraud, repression and state violence against the opposition. As expected, the long-standing President, Aleksander Lukashenko, claimed a landslide victory. What was unusual this time, however, was the scale of Belarusians' disappointment: peaceful protests and strikes spread throughout the entire country in response to the stolen election, despite brutal crackdowns. What started as a national crisis now represents a wider struggle between truth and lies, democracy and autocracy, raising the stakes for both Minsk and Moscow, whose nervousness has spilled over into mounting aggression.
At a Glance
About this document
Publication type
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Policy area
Keyword
- authoritarian regime
- Belarus
- censorship
- communications
- economic geography
- EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
- electoral fraud
- electoral procedure and voting
- Europe
- GEOGRAPHY
- geopolitics
- government violence
- humanities
- political crisis
- political framework
- political geography
- political opposition
- POLITICS
- politics and public safety
- presidential election
- repression
- Russia
- SCIENCE