Belarus: authoritarianism is also a virus
The parody of the presidential elections is accompanied by repression and fraud.
In a criminal and irresponsible attitude, President Alexander Lukashenko made an electoral call in the middle of the pandemic. Thus he risked the lives of the population only for his own interest. But things did not turn out the way he intended and he was met with a huge popular response, with protests and mobilizations. And again the authoritarianism of the regime was revealed, responded with a real political hunt on the opposition, with repression and arrest of hundreds of people. The executive arms of the presidential orders are the State Control Committee, the KGB and the police.
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Before the start of the arrests, Lukashenko hinted that one of his opponents in the elections, He was involved in a fraud around the Privat Leasing company. Subsequent searches were precisely connected with the activities of this company. Although he did not name it, it was Viktor Babariko, a former banker and candidate with 368 thousand signatures of support, who was arrested, just like your son, on charges of money laundering. This is just the tip of the iceberg, since there are also hundreds of activists persecuted and / or detained, which deepened the usual authoritarianism, as it happened with the Blogger Sergey Tihanovskij. It is a reaction similar to that of Vladimir Putin in Moscow to electoral opponents, in the attempt to continue consolidating its power.
It should be remembered that Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, who has liquidated the division of powers by creating the "National Assembly" and heads a regime of heavy hand applied to anyone who does not respond to his orders, mainly towards the workers and popular movement. This new attack occurs within the framework of the advance of the pandemic in a country whose president is a denier of the scope of Covid-19, that has left the population totally unprotected, even doing a military parade on Victory Day. With infections and deaths, social inequality has also advanced, since while a handful of businessmen and state bureaucrats enrich themselves, the majority of the population is impoverished.
Clarifying that we have nothing to do with the bourgeois candidates, liberal and bureaucratic, we do not defend your policy or your program. But it is clear that what is happening exceeds these characters: a new attack on the most elementary democratic freedoms is underway. We repudiate the state violence ordered by Lukashenko, We demand an end to repression and the freedom of political prisoners. There are no free elections when there is pressure and fraud, when trying to put aside independent observers and impose fear. We demand freedom so that workers can mobilize and organize when and how they want, for the free expression of the Belarusian people.
Decades of authoritarianism are feeding the population, a great popular mobilization for freedom is needed, a general strike for social rights and a leftist political alternative for Lukashenko to leave. further, international solidarity with the Belarusian people.
Correspondent.
