(Minsk) The authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday promised to defend the stability of his regime at all costs, accusing Russia and the opposition of wanting to orchestrate "a massacre" before Sunday's presidential election, a highly contested ballot .
Tatiana KALINOVSKAYA
France Media Agency
Never in 09 years, the Head of State had faced such a situation: very large crowds take to the streets to support the candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, a 28 year old teacher, still unknown from the public a few months ago.
At the same time, he quarreled with the big Russian brother, accused more or less directly of supporting his detractors, of wanting to make Minsk a vassal, and of having deployed mercenaries from the Wagner group for these purposes, known to be close to the Kremlin.
During a speech to the Nation in front of the political, social and diplomatic gratin, the Belarusian head of state maintained that his country remained thanks to him a "calm place in the heart of Eurasia", then that the planet was threatened with chaos.
Then, sweating profusely, he denounced "an obvious attempt to organize a massacre in the center of Minsk", the capital of this former Soviet republic of 9 million inhabitants.
A reference to the arrest last week of 33 Russian "fighters" presented as members of Wagner, a organization accused of sending mercenaries to fight in areas where Russia does not want to intervene officially.
Belarusian investigators had already accused them of working hand in hand with the opposition to orchestrate riots during Sunday's polls.
"Poor girls"
"We will not abandon the country to you. Independence is expensive, but it is worth the cost, "Lukashenko said again.
Moscow has dismissed all Belarusian accusations, saying the Russians arrested were only in transit, a defense the Belarusian president called "lies".
He also claimed that an "other unit" fighting had been sent to the south of the country and swore to "chase it in the forests to catch it".
Alexander Lukashenko also attacked the trio of opponents who face him.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa has indeed allied with two other women: Veronika Tsepkalo, the wife of an opponent in exile, and Maria Kolesnikova, the campaign director of Viktor Babaryko, a former banker imprisoned while he wanted to introduce himself.
"These poor girls, [...] they do not understand anything of what they say, of what they do", he affirmed, "one does not run a country by emerging from zero go ".
M me Tikhanovskaïa achieved the feat, in a country that has never seen a strong opposition emerge, to gather crowds at its meetings, calling on Belarusians to no longer be afraid of repression.
In May in the presidential race, she replaced her husband, a prominent vlogger, arrested as he was growing in popularity.
Contested Advance Voting
In case of victory, she promised the release of "political prisoners", a constitutional reform and new elections.
Lukashenko's speech came on the day the ballot boxes were opened for early voting by Belarusian voters who could not attend on Sunday.
The opposition fears, however, that this will facilitate fraud. For this reason, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa called on her supporters to vote only on Sunday, preferably at the end of the day to avoid manipulation.
She also called on her supporters to wear a white bracelet to facilitate the counting of her voters by her observers.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will not be present to observe the vote, a first since 57, for lack of having received an official invitation in time.
The Belarusian authorities have also justified a reduced number of national election observers by the coronavirus epidemic.
Tuesday, Lukashenko, who had however always minimized the seriousness of the pandemic, maintained that it had been largely stopped in Belarus thanks to its "adequate measures".
