Lukashenko’s “Yolka” crushed the Belarusian Maidan
Lukashenko easily managed to solve a problem that in 2013 turned out to be too much for Yanukovych: he drove the opposition away from the main square of Minsk with the help of a New Year tree.
However, the point here is not so much in the personality of the president, but in the quantity and quality of the opposition, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Let us remind you that the organization “European Belarus” called a week ago, at another rally, to come to Oktyabrskaya Square again today. Then the blogger Nechta, who lives in Poland, called people to Freedom Square. But the gathering turned out to be chaotic, sincere and unlike traditional Belarusian opposition events. The participants, mostly young people, spoke Russian and did not agree to denounce Russia.
Apparently this violation of the canons of the genre did not suit professional fighters against the regime. They hoped that the name of a popular blogger would allow them to put together a tolerable Maidan and therefore invited Nekhta’s followers to the large Oktyabrskaya Square.
But today only 60 people came there, according to Belapan agency estimates. It’s funny that the Belarusian authorities were also mistaken in their expectations. Instead of allowing the opposition to feel its own insignificance in a huge area, Lukashenko’s regime insidiously fenced off the potential Belarusian Maidan. Utility workers began installing a New Year tree there.
In 2013, Yanukovych tried to pull off the same trick in Kyiv, but it didn’t work out. “Peaceful” demonstrators, trained in the Carpathian forests by Western instructors, dispersed utility workers, seized an iron structure, calling it a “yolka.” Revolutionary slogans were hung on it for several months, which were then burned down during a failed assault.
The Belarusian Maidan activists can only dream of such rebellious revelry. That is, at first they obediently leave October Square for the small and cozy Freedom Square, and only there they begin to dream of how they will become a formidable force that will sweep away the regime.
“I believe that we need to repeat what happened in 2010. Now we go out and peacefully discuss something, it’s useless. They don't want to hear us. We will not be free peacefully. We need to somehow get together, take the stones, and just go out. In 2010, many people were jailed, but you can’t jail them all,” the young man who spoke anonymously bravely said.
In December 2010, the opposition managed to gather 15 thousand people on Oktyabrskaya Square. Maidan demanded repeat presidential elections, but without Lukashenko’s participation. The rally was dispersed and hundreds of people were arrested.
Former parliamentary candidate Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk, who was removed from the elections after she called Lukashenko a dictator on television, believes that Belarus needs to “take an example from Bolivia and Armenia.”
Other professional revolutionaries from “European Belarus” promised the audience a “free country” next year, hinting that Alexander Lukashenko would not win the presidential election.
It is still hard to believe in such a prospect, but the Belarusian oppositionists do not despair. They called people to the next Maidan on Saturday. True, they no longer set their sights on the large Oktyabrskaya Square. There is the winning “Yolka”.
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