July 2020. President Alexander Lukashenko had three main rivals in the presidential election next month. Two were jailed. One was denied registration as a candidate. The top challenger now is a woman — so, to Belarus’s longtime leader, she didn’t really count as a threat. A female president “would collapse, poor thing,” Lukashenko said on May 29 as he met workers at a tractor factory. The country, he added, “has not matured enough” to vote for a woman. But the campaign for the Aug. 9 vote may be remembered as the time when Lukashenko’s authoritarian grip — and his out-of-touch attitudes on everything from female leadership to fighting the coronavirus pandemic — began to slip. Opposition groups have united behind his main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a shy, 37-year-old language teacher. She took up the presidential bid only after her husband, popular vlogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arrested two days after announcing he planned to run for president.
Jul 2020. Belarus Elections
