Opponents of newly elected President Alexander Lukashenko faced a crucial test of strength yesterday, planning a second protest against a vote the government said had handed the authoritarian incumbent a new five-year term by a massive margin.
Lukashenko, who has ruled with an iron hand since 1994, won a "commanding victory" with 82.6 percent, according to a complete preliminary ballot count, Central Election Commission chief Lidiya Yermoshina said. Main opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich received 6 percent, she said.
Addressing a crowd of thou-sands waving flags and shouting for freedom in a central Minsk square after polls closed on Sunday, Milinkevich dismissed the vote as a farce and called for "new, honest elections" in the former Soviet republic.
PHOTO: AP
Several thousand people massed in Oktyabrskaya Square, heeding Milinkevich's calls for a peaceful protest and defying a government ban on election day rallies that had raised fears of a potentially violent confrontation.
Milinkevich and the other opposition candidate, Alexander Kozulin, called on supporters to return to the square yesterday evening -- signaling a bid to hold a sustained protest like those that brought opposition leaders to power in other ex-Soviet republics including neighboring Ukraine.
The authorities made no move to disperse protesters on Sunday, but busloads of riot police idling on a nearby street were a silent reminder of the government's threats of a decisive response.
The crowd was the biggest the opposition had mustered in years, reaching at least 10,000, according to reporters' estimates. After about three hours, a smaller group marched to nearby Victory Square, some laying carnations at a monument there before dispersing around midnight.
"Tomorrow we will show the world our might!" said Kozulin, who the elections chief said received 2.3 percent of the vote. He demanded the release of what he said were hundreds of opposition activists detained during a campaign marred by heavy-handed government harassment.
Meanwhile, the EU said yesterday that the presidential election in Belarus was marred by a "climate of intimidation."
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said the opposition in the former Soviet republic "was systematically intimidated" in campaigning for Sunday's presidential elections in which President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with an overwhelming majority.
But the head of the observer mission of a grouping of former Soviet states yesterday called the disputed Belarusian presidential election open and transparent.
Rushailo, in a droning statement that lasted more than a half-hour, said the CIS mission's 467 observers concluded that, despite some technical violations, the Sunday elections took place within the requirements of Belarusian law.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS