(ANSA-AFP) - MINSK, 08 AGO - Strongman Alexander Lukashenko,
who has ruled over ex-Soviet Belarus for nearly three decades,
is facing down the greatest challenge to his rule yet ahead of
presidential elections on Sunday. In the run-up to the vote in
which Lukashenko will seek a sixth term, protests have erupted
across the country straddling Russia and Europe, with
37-year-old stay-at-home-mother Svetlana Tikhanovskaya emerging
as his toughest rival. Critics have mocked Lukashenko, claiming
his approval ratings have hit single digits and nicknamed the
65-year-old authoritarian leader "Sasha 3 percent." One of
Lukashenko's would-be rivals, Tikhanovskaya's husband Sergei,
dubbed the famously mustachioed Lukashenko "the cockroach" and
his supporters waved slippers at protests to symbolise stamping
out his rule. In response, Lukashenko, who is Europe's longest
serving leader, jailed his main rivals including Tikhanovsky and
told opponents not to call him names. "Insulting people is not
allowed in any country in the world," he said at a meeting with
Belarusians in late June. "Do you really believe that a sitting
president can have a 3-percent rating?" During an animated
address to the nation this week, Lukashenko wiped sweat from his
brow as he accused the opposition of planning mass riots in the
capital Minsk and urged voters to renew his tenure to stave off
a revolution. "All kinds of arrows, poisoned and COVID-ridden,
are targeted at Lukashenko in order to bring him down, humiliate
him, stamp on him, and destroy him," he told the packed
auditorium of officials, church leaders and military personnel.
The surprise opposition candidate mounting the most serious
challenge in years to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
said Friday that her country was waking up, but warned the
strongman planned to rig the vote. "People are waking up,
rediscovering their self-respect," 37-year-old Svetlana
Tikhanovskaya told AFP in an interview in central Minsk.
Tikhanovskaya decided to run after her 41-year-old blogger
husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, ended up in jail and could not
submit his own presidential bid in time. She said she expected
Lukashenko, in power since 1994, to rig Sunday's election. "We
won't be able to prevent falsifications. We've seen over the
past couple of days how brazenly this election is being
falsified. There is no hope that they will count honestly. We
have to be realistic." Early voting began in the ex-Soviet
country of 9.5 million people on Tuesday, with official turnout
over the past three days already at more than 22 percent. She
said the opposition would conduct an alternative count and would
know if the election had been rigged, but said she would not
urge her supporters to take to the streets. "At this stage each
one has to decide for himself," she said, warning that
Lukashenko would only encourage protests by quashing dissent.
"They are doing everything for the peaceful protests to become
bloody ones. And I don't want this." (ANSA-AFP).
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