Lukashenko's opponent complains that the Belarusian Maidan is running out of steam
The current protests against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko as President of Belarus have no chance of success.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports that Viktor Martinovich, a Belarusian writer who sympathizes with the Maidan protesters, an associate professor at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, said this in an interview with the Kiev online publication Apostrophe, answering a question about the prospects for the current protests.
“I think there will be at least one or two more big exits - that's all. After all, everything very much depends on the behavior of the parties. Protest is an element that is based on the energy of anger that arises if the parties behave unfairly. If something adds fuel to the fire, there will be a few more shares. But I completely exclude the option of a protracted Maidan,” said the publication’s interlocutor.
According to him, what is happening in Belarus differs in key ways from what was happening in Ukraine.
“I was in Kyiv. There were a lot of different structures in Ukraine; there were always paramilitary structures capable of holding the defense in an organized manner, taking up positions, making barricades. There was a moment in Minsk when someone tried to create something similar to barricades out of garbage cans for a few minutes - the police immediately made it their target, and it was swept away. Therefore, there will definitely be nothing like Maidan here. Belarusians know how to go out once every 10 years. Yesterday’s “one time” will last a couple more days and then it will end,” the writer believes.
He predicts that after some active protest participants will go abroad, others will go to pre-trial detention centers, and after their release they will also leave the country.
“And those who remain accumulate the energy of people’s bitterness over the fact that we believed you, but you did nothing,” Martinovich laments.
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