Central Europe Criticizes Belarus Election as Demonstrations Planned in Poland

Belarusians living in Warsaw are organising a solidarity demonstration with protesters back home for Monday evening, after governments in the region lined up to criticize what is widely seen as another rigged poll in the country.

Demonstrators take part in a protest rally after polling stations closed in the presidential elections, in Minsk, Belarus, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STRINGER

Belarusians living in Warsaw are organising a solidarity demonstration with protesters back home for Monday evening, with thousands expected to join the event starting at 7pm CET near the Copernic monument on Krakowskie Przedmiescie in the centre of the capital. Similar events are planned in other Polish cities, including Krakow and Lodz.

The demonstrations come as Poland and other Central European nations lined up to criticise the Belarusian authorities for conducting what they consider a flawed presidential election and then using violence against people protesting the vote, which left at least one dead, dozens injured and more than 3,000 detained.

The Belarusian Central Election Commission chief Lidia Yermoshina announced on Monday that the long-serving Alexander Lukashenko – Europe’s last dictator, as he’s often referred to – had won 80 per cent of the vote according to preliminary results, handing him a sixth term in office. The main opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former teacher who managed to become the face of the opposition during the campaign, won 9.9 per cent, while three other candidates each won less than 2 per cent.

Tikhanovskaya rejected the official results that gave Lukashenko his landslide victory and her team has vowed to stay in the country to campaign for a change of power. “I will believe my own eyes – the majority was for us,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told reporters in the capital, Minsk, on Monday.

Central European leaders lined up to condemn the poll.

“The intervention of the Belarusian regime against the political opponents and citizens calmly expressing their views is not acceptable. We call upon president Alexander Lukashenko to uphold the basic principles of democracy and freedom of expression. Nobody can be persecuted for their opinion,” said the Slovak foreign minister, Ivan Korcok.

Poland was even more forthright, calling on the leaders of the European Commission and the European Council to hold a special EU summit on Belarus. “In the face of the ongoing events in Belarus, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its deep concern about the brutal pacification of post-election demonstrations. The harsh reaction, the use of force against peaceful protesters, and arbitrary arrests are unacceptable,” a statement said.

The Czech foreign ministry said in a statement: “These elections cannot be labelled as free and democratic.”

Lukashenko, for his part, claimed that the protests on Sunday evening had been orchestrated by means of telephone calls from Poland, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic, TASS reported.

Belarusians abroad

The Belarusian opposition’s cause has been taken up by many Belarusians abroad, including those in Poland, which hosts a sizeable Belarusian minority. In addition to the 47,000 Polish citizens of Belarusian ethnicity, tens of thousands of Belarusians have migrated to Poland in the last years in search of work and a better life. They’re now the second largest migrant group in Poland after Ukrainians, with over 21,000 holding residence permits and many others using visas.

“Let us show Belarusians that they can count on us,” the Facebook announcement about this evening’s event said. “Let’s show solidarity with our neighbours, who are trying to bring change in their country in a peaceful manner.”

On Sunday evening, over 2,000 Belarusians residing in Poland queued up in front of the embassy in Warsaw to vote, but only 244 eventually got to exercise their right, as the embassy invoked the coronavirus pandemic to limit access.

Anticipating this outcome, members of the Belarusian diaspora prepared an alternative ballot in front of the embassy. According to 29-year-old activist Alexander Lapko, one of the organisers of the action, 2,379 people took part and Tsikhanouskaya won 98.7% of the votes. Only three people voted for Lukashenko in the alternative poll.

“This is the representation of Belarusians’ sentiments,” Lapko told BIRN. “I believe that inside Belarus the situation is the same and that the government is falsifying the elections in a very dirty manner.”

“The reaction of people in Belarus is understandable – they were robbed by their president,” said Lapko, who has been living in Poland for four years and is one of the organisers of tonight’s Warsaw demonstration. “The 9.9 per cent which the electoral commission assigned to Tsikhanouskaya is a blatant lie, because even at electoral rallies she gathered numerous people who are her sincere supporters.”