A 12 months after declaring victory in a rigged election, Belarusian chief Alexander Lukashenko has misplaced none of his energy to induce marvel.
In feedback made throughout a marathon information convention on Monday, the 27-year-leader delivered what seemed to be a bombshell. He mentioned he was prepared to maneuver on – “very quickly” – and had recognized 15 or 20 potential successors, all of whom resembled him “ultimately”.
However in a footnote that will show nearer to the reality, the self-declared president added that he had no intention of changing into “a pensioner”.
“I gained’t have a quiet life till my demise,” he mentioned.
Within the characteristically bizarre Q&A session – one through which the “A”s took up all however the entirety of the six-hour convention – Mr Lukashenko denied he had overseen bloody repression to hold on to energy. He was no dictator, he insisted, regardless of beforehand figuring out as such.
“The world has been overtaken by barefaced lies, hype, hate, bullying, trolling, bots and different communication applied sciences,” he mentioned.
As he spoke, in an alternate actuality, the US, Canada and the UK all moved to impose contemporary sanctions on his regime in a coordinated motion focused to hit the nation’s economic system and its Olympic Committee.
One 12 months in the past, on 9 August 2020, Belarusians went to the polls and certain voted in overwhelming numbers for Mr Lukashenko’s unified opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
Impartial exit polls advised she had gained the votes of greater than 71 per cent of Belarusians. The official outcomes reported an inverted actuality: that the incumbent had gained over 80 per cent towards Ms Tikhanovskaya’s 10.
What adopted was an more and more vicious cycle of mass protest and mass repression: 1000’s arrested, tons of tortured, and eight individuals lifeless.
At one level, protesters appeared to be gaining the higher hand, with unprecedented numbers attending protests throughout the nation. That modified in late August, when Russian president Vladimir Putin provided safety ensures.
Emboldened by that autocratic kiss of life, Mr Lukashenko has launched into an more and more brazen and repressive journey. He has opened over 4,600 prison instances towards opponents and journalists, with 600 political prisoners remaining in regime jails at present. They embrace presidential rivals who couldn’t, or selected to not, depart the nation.
In Might, Mr Lukashenko sanctioned the hijacking of a business jet carrying opposition journalist Roman Protasevich. Then on 2 August, the exiled Belarusian activist Vitaly Shishov was discovered hanged in suspicious circumstances in a Kyiv park. Colleagues say he had complained of being adopted in earlier days.
At varied factors throughout Monday’s multi-hour “dialog”, Mr Lukashenko denied having something to do with any of those excesses.
He rejected proof that he had ordered the bodily torment of tons of in his jails. That was a manufactured faux, he mentioned. There have been solely 47 officers at Okrestina, probably the most notorious of the jails – and that was “not sufficient” to torture the entire 1000’s being held.
So far as the case of Mr Shishov was involved, the deceased man was “a no one” to him: the president claimed to not know his title. A fair weaker defence adopted: there was “no approach” Belarus would have despatched their brokers to Kyiv to hold him, he mentioned. He had “sufficient” individuals to take care of again dwelling.
“You cling one, and tomorrow there might be another person – you possibly can’t cling all of them,” he mentioned.
The risky chief devoted lots of the early exchanges throughout the press convention to the nation’s worsening relations with Kyiv. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has promised a full investigation into Mr Shishov’s demise, and on Thursday mentioned he would assure the “unconditional defence” of Belarusian activists on Ukrainian soil.
Mr Lukashenko mentioned his reverse quantity was de facto answerable for the demise of a “Belarusian citizen”. That was in distinction to his personal mannequin behaviour with the jailed blogger Protasevich, he added – claiming to have saved him from “an assassination plot” being directed from Europe. This was the primary time the Belarusian chief had made such claims. He declined to supply proof or particulars of the supposed international operation.
In one other topsy-turvy second, Mr Lukashenko accused Ukraine of sending arms by the largely unprotected forest border between the 2 former Soviet states. Ukrainian diplomats counsel the alternative is true.
From exile in Lithuania, the lady who doubtless gained final 12 months’s election ran a parallel press convention, saying that Mr Lukashenko’s erratic rule was coming at an more and more heavy price to unusual Belarusians.
“Over one 12 months, his regime has moved from an illegitimate one to a terroristic one,” she mentioned.