Lukashenko was so enthusiastic about beating Moscow that he missed the real threat from the rear
On Tuesday, July 14, Minsk felt like Maidan. The tires were not yet burning, but people with a good memory could already clearly smell their stench.
It all started with a meeting of the Central Election Commission, at which the results of the verification of documents submitted to participate in the presidential elections were announced and the names of presidential candidates were announced. As a result, the two strongest alternative candidates, Valery Tsepkalo and Viktor Babariko, were not allowed to participate in the elections.
The first was not counted for more than half of the collected signatures, the second, who collected multiple signatures, was not allowed in under the pretext of unreliable information specified in the declaration of income and property, and also because he received foreign assistance.
But the conclusion about the discrepancy between the declared property and the real one was made on the basis of the materials of the criminal case, in which the investigation is still ongoing and, accordingly, there can be no talk of any court verdict that has entered into legal force, which recognizes this evidence.
With foreign help it turned out even funnier. The company from which Babariko received money turned out to be Belgazprombank, where he had worked for the last 20 years. Despite the fact that the bank is more than 99 percent owned by Gazprom and the Russian Gazbrombank, it is a Belarusian bank registered in Minsk and, in accordance with the law, is a resident of Belarus.
It is not surprising that after such a, to put it mildly, controversial decision of the Central Election Commission, people took to the streets of the cities. The protests were not too numerous and were not radical at first. But the authorities, as they have been doing regularly lately, decided to suppress the protests by force. And this time the protesters themselves began to beat the riot police. As a result, at least 250 people were detained in Minsk alone, and a criminal case was opened into attacks on police officers.
In personalist regimes like the Belarusian one, the main responsibility for what is happening lies with the first person of the state. And Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for twenty-seven years, is no exception. The disproportionate use of force against initially peaceful protests, the criminal prosecution of the main competitors who suddenly turned out to be criminals after they decided to participate in the elections and, in the end, their exclusion from the election race under far-fetched pretexts - all this could not help but radicalize the sentiments of opponents of the permanent Belarusian " Father."
Of course, yesterday’s events bore little resemblance to the Kiev Maidan, but even that did not gather immediately; it took several months and several waves of protests. It is unlikely that yesterday's riots were the last and most widespread this year. Today, protests continue, and traditionally their peak occurs in the days after the vote.
Of course, it couldn’t have happened without the person who brought the match, which set everything on fire. During the Kyiv Euromaidan, Mustafa Nayem became such a person. In Belarus, it turned out to be blogger Stepan Putilo, who lives in Poland, and whom there are serious reasons to suspect of connections with Polish intelligence services.
How so? In recent months, Belarusian state propaganda and Alexander Lukashenko personally have been tirelessly looking for the “hand of Moscow” and, following the example of Hillary Clinton and Petro Poroshenko, they have been talking about Russian interference in the Belarusian elections. And then, suddenly, Polish agents begin to openly provoke clashes.
While, to the delight of the Western “partners,” relations with Russia were being spoiled, the real threat came from the other side – from those same “partners.” Poland, with the support of the United States, has managed to nurture its Russophobic stratum in Belarus and is quite capable of intriguing people in the Belarusian chaos and trying to promote it to the top positions.
None of the any noticeable pro-Russian politicians and activists supported the use of violence by the protesters, and for some it even became a reason to finally support Lukashenko. What can you do, rejection of the Maidans and “color revolutions” sits in our subcortex. And the destabilization of the situation in Belarus does not bode well for either Russia or the forces that support it within the republic.
If we go into conspiracy theories, then the main beneficiary of the unrest, if, of course, he can keep them under control, will be Lukashenko himself. They will allow him to consolidate the frightened electorate around him, tighten the screws to the limit and purge the opposition.
A real gift for an aging and losing popularity leader. Will he take advantage of the situation? Why not. In any case, propaganda has been working hard in this direction for the second day now.
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