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The migration crisis, sanctions for the repression of opponents or allegations of electoral fraud have fueled the confrontation between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and the European Union in recent months, but this controversial politician has been ruling by hand for more than a quarter of a century. iron Belarus. Political heir to the Soviet Union, Lukashenko has been adapting the Belarusian state to his figure since 1994 and repressing any type of political opposition.
Belarus is a nation that has historically been a bridge between Russia and Western Europe and a key passage for gas pipelines to the heart of the continent. Its union with Russia has always been very strong, to the point of having been part of this country for centuries. But in 1991, the disintegration of the Soviet Union gave way to the formation of a young republic that fell early under Lukashenko’s control.
This president, of humble origins, is a sonpolitician of the Soviet Union. He ran, from the beginning, in defense of the most conservative wing of the Communist Party of the extinct nation and against the Perestroika launched by Mikhail Gorbachev to open up the socialist country politically.
His figure began to gain relevance three years after the separation of Belarus from the rest of the USSR, when he ran as a candidate in the first free elections in the history of the country with two key points as axes of his campaign: the fight against corruption. and nostalgia for what the Soviet Union stood for. His campaign was a complete success as he won a victory with 80% of the vote in what would be the last democratic elections in Belarus.
Following this victory, Lukashenko began to forge the young Belarusian state in his image and likeness with two political referendums in 1995 and 1996 that increased its executive power and brought back to Belarus discarded symbolism after the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The alliance with Russia has been key for Lukashenko
But its strength in BelarusIt cannot be understood without the decisive support of Moscow. His alliance with Russia was forged during the government of Boris Yeltsin and has endured in the era of Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko has prioritized the use of Russian in Belarus and the approach to the Kremlin in order to get away from what he considered “the foreign threat” from the West. Except for occasional disagreements during the Putin government, Russia has offered Belarus fundamental economic and military support that has helped Lukashenko to perpetuate himself in power so far.
Something important, since from the beginning of the 2000s the first alarm bells began to resonate regarding what Belarus was becoming. In 2001, the first elections considered by the international community as rigged took place. Lukashenko obtained 75% of the votes and his power continued to be consolidated with the elimination of the term limit in 2004, a new norm voted also via referendum. This allowed him to be reelected in 2006 with 83% of the votes.
The fraud was joined by reports of repression of opponents. Numerous organizations and activists have tried, since the early years of the 21st century, to remove Lukashenko from power without success. The Belarusian leader’s victories were even more overwhelming for the 2010 and 2015 elections, where a significant number of rival candidates were persecuted, imprisoned or had to go into exile. But despite the controversy, his repressive actions went relatively unnoticed on the international scene.
2020 protests shaken Lukashenko’s power
This changed in August 2020. The opposition went to the elections organized around the figure of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the last of all the opposition candidates who had not been jailed, and showed its strength in the street. Lukashenko won the victory again, but the fraud was very evident to the public opinion. Something that sparked historic protests across the country that made the president feel threatened for the first time.
This caused the repression to increaseand that thousands of people were arrested in the demonstrations. The numbers talk for themselves. It is estimated that more than 20,000 protesters were arrested by the authorities in the first months of the protest. Detentions that on many occasions were accompanied by human rights violations, torture and harassment that were denounced by the World Organization Against Torture or the United Nations.
For the Lukashenko government, however, it was all about foreign interference that attacked its sovereignty, a response that caused the European Union and the United States to issue the first sanctions against this country and increase its international isolation.
But Lukashenko continued in power and his tension with the European Union and the West continued to grow. The Belarusian president, aware that the migration issue is one of Brussels’ greatest weaknesses, decided to play his card with the migration crisis that originated on the border between his country and Poland. Thousands of people from countries in conflict in the Middle East and Africa came to Belarus with the aim of being able to enter the European Union and settle there.
The situation has generated a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the freezing temperatures in the region and has further increased tension with the community bloc. The European Union sees this as Minsk’s strategy to increase pressure on Europe to remove sanctions and end international isolation. An issue that is yet to be seen.
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