(Removes reference in paragraph 6 to Tsikhanouskaya calling on voters to spoil their ballots)
By David Ljunggren and Kyaw Soe Oo
OTTAWA (Reuters) -The exiled chief of the Belarusian opposition is advising individuals within the Jap European nation to not protest in opposition to elections in January, saying the vote is a ritual designed to provide false legitimacy to President Alexander Lukashenko.
His election win in 2020 triggered unprecedented demonstrations by protesters accusing him of rigging the ballot.
Police quelled the protests and human rights teams say some 30,000 had been detained for numerous durations of time.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran in opposition to Lukashenko in 2020 and later went into exile, stated she feared a crackdown if individuals went out into the streets this time.
“We can’t allow protests at the moment, because for four years people experience such brutal repressions,” she informed Reuters in an interview on Tuesday in Ottawa.
“These so-called elections are not the trigger that people need. So I’m asking people not to sacrifice themselves,” she stated.
The Belarus inside ministry final week stated police would conduct drills forward of the election to make sure that “manifestations of extremism and terrorism” had been prevented.
Lukashenko, 70, who has been in energy within the former Soviet state since 1994 and is an in depth ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is working for a seventh time period in workplace on Jan. 26.
Tsikhanouskaya, who’s now primarily based in Lithuania and has a heavy safety presence, known as on the worldwide group to not acknowledge the outcomes and stated democracies “might be braver”, particularly by imposing extra sanctions.
“I understand it might somehow disturb (the) comfortable life of citizens of your countries, but sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice a little bit of comfort for bigger aims,” she stated.
Lukashenko and his supporters deny he has rigged elections and say the overwhelming majority of voters again him.
“I don’t decide whether or not I am in power or not. … The people entrusted me with this high office,” he informed reporters in July 2023.
Regardless of the police presence, and the truth that 500,000 individuals left the nation of 9 million after 2020, persons are forming underground actions in acts of defiance in opposition to Lukashenko, she stated.
“Our fight, our task is to weaken him economically, to weaken him politically,” she stated, predicting that as quickly because the repressions ended, individuals could be within the streets once more.
“When the moment comes, believe me, people will be vocal, people will be visible.”
Since July, Lukashenko has issued six units of pardons for political prisoners. Human rights teams say greater than 1,200 detainees labeled as political prisoners stay in detention.
Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Syarhei Tsikhanouski has been in jail since 2020 after being barred from collaborating within the election that his spouse contested as a substitute.
