The Belarusian opposition denounces Lukashenko and Sunday’s elections

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya refuses to call what is happening this weekend in Belarus an election.

“It’s a farce,” says the leader of the exiled opposition. “This is a military style operation; an action organized by the regime to hold on to power.”

For three decades, the country has been directed by a Alexander Lukashenko increasingly authoritarian, now firmly supported by Vladimir Putin, which makes use of his neighbor in his large -scale invasion of Ukraine.

This Sunday, the Belarusians will see the name of Lukashenko on the ballot once again, with four other names chosen carefully so as not to be any challenge.

Independent observers are not allowed.

The tight controls have benefited because the last time the Belarusians voted for a president, the country was swept by giant protests.

In 2020, Alexander Lukashenko allowed Svetlana Tikhanovskaya to run against him, thinking that a political rookie, and a woman would have no impact.

It was a mass calculation error.

Tikhanovskaya, who decided to stop instead of her husband after Lukashenko put him in jail, claimed the victory.

When Lukashenko received 80% of the votes, the crowds took to the streets in the greatest threat to the Lukashenko government. The protests were crushed by the riot police with massive arrests and gross strength.

The European Union then refused to recognize the legitimacy of Lukashenko as president.

Today, all key figures in the period are in prison or have fled abroad, such as Tikhanovskaya. The former protesters who are still in Belarus have been afraid of silence.

Then, the opposition leader does not urge them to take to the streets again on Sunday.

“We call on the Belarusians to reject this farce and in the international community to reject the result,” he tells the BBC. “But I tell the Belarusians, you must keep safe until the real moment of possibilities.

“Because people live in constant fear, and the regime is now intensifying repression.”

You feel that fear immediately when you talk to the Belarusians.

Many do not want to speak publicly about politics. Others ask you to change your names and then choose your words carefully.

Some are still inside the Belarus chat only through encrypted messages that immediately eliminate.

Everyone says that open political activism in the country has become extinct.

Bysol, a non -profit organization that helps evacuate people in danger, informs an increase in requests of around 30 or 40 applications per month.

Since 2020, the group has evacuated more than 1,500 people.

It also supports former political prisoners who try to rebuild life in exile after their release.

For Yana Zhuravleva, a veterinarian, it has been difficult.

Before 2020, he was dedicated to his work and not particularly politically active. But that summer joined the giant crowds, with the hope of changes.

He was later sentenced to three years for a “serious violation of public order.”

“They would punish us for everything,” he recalls his time in prison.

She calculates that approximately 1 in 10 of the women were there due to the protests. Like them, Yana added to the registration of those “inclined to extremism and destructive activity.”

“You can’t go to the sports hall, your only cards are from relatives and get less visiting rights. If you complain, you always listen to the same answer: remember what you are here for,” he tells me from Poland, where he moved after his recent launch.

Yana admits that it took the “Titanic” force not to slide into a deep depression.

“In prison, I barely cried. But when I was out, suddenly I wanted to sob all the time and I didn’t know why.”

Several people I contacted have mentioned to seek psychological help, after being interrogated, threatened or imprisoned.

They describe a security service that seeks anyone with the most loose link to the opposition, then requires names of all those who stop.

The pressure has never decreased.

A woman inside Belarus, who used to monitor human rights, tells me that she has had to stop attending judicial audiences because the authorities saw her.

If they could try any link with the Viasna prohibited human rights organization, it could be accused as an “extremist.”

“I can do some specific support acts, but I have to be careful,” he told me anonymously.

“You have a very strong feeling of helplessness when you see all this injustice.”

Viasna currently lists 1,256 political prisoners in Belarus. Dozens received amnesties recently, but were soon replaced.

For those who escape the cheorrusa pressure cooking, there is the additional fight to know that they may not return for a long time.

That is why Natalia, not her real name, decided to stay in Belarusian even after she was arrested twice for participating in the protests.

“You are very vulnerable once you are on the list of the ‘repressed,” he explains.

“You can’t get a job because you are in the police database and the authorities always serve you …”

For Natalia, that meant being arrested again, initially for walking her dog without lead.

“They said he had been aggressive and cursed aloud and stirred my arms,” ​​he recalls, of his arrest in 2023. It was retained for ten days with up to 14 people in a cell for two, a light constantly.

For more than a week, he slept on the wooden floor.

“It really shook my sense of security, I got much more anxious,” says Natalia.

She is abroad for now and plans to return soon, to her cats. But his neighbors say that a police officer has just visited his home, controlling all possible protesters before Sunday’s vote.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya believes that the ongoing repression shows that Lukashenko and his allies are afraid.

“The 2020 trauma is still alive and has to eliminate any possibility of uprising,” argues the opposition leader.

“He knows that the Belarusians did not accept him or forgave him, and they still want changes.”

But she admits that there is little sign of that in the short term.

For a while after the large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine, the Belarusians hoped that their neighbors could succeed in defeating Putin with Western aid, and that Lukashenko would follow it.

Some went to the front line, choosing the force after their peaceful protests had failed.

But the Ukraine Army is now struggling to stay on the way and President Donald Trump is pressing for peace conversations.

“The democratic world cannot make Putin concessions,” argues Tikhanovskaya, describing Lukashenko as equally dangerous for the world.

He let Russia launch missiles in Ukraine from Belarus and send its tanks through its territory.

It has also allowed the free flow of migrants to the Polish border and the EU.

“It allows Putin to deploy nuclear weapons and its army in Belarus, and it is a very short path to Poland and Lithuania,” says Tikhanovskaya.

“He and Putin are a couple, and support other dictators. He is part of this chain of evil.”

There are few doubts that the restoration of Sunday to Alexander Lukashenko will agree with his plan.

“Those people are very capable,” explains Yana, the former political prisoner.

“They really crushed the protest potential.”

He is now trying to return to his profession as a veterinarian, but in Poland, and recover from three difficult years after bars.

Those with whom I talked now to see Lukashenko retire, or finally die, as their greatest hope of seeing democracy.

Meanwhile, many are changing focus: there has been an increase in interest in reviving scourge culture and language, a cause of the opposition. It is the most dare in such circumstances.

“Nobody says it openly, but we feel that there are no perspectives. There is depression,” admits Natalia.

But there are no obvious regrets, even so.

The life of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has changed dramatically since it was pushed into politics.

Cut of her country, her husband is also a political prisoner, kept in total isolation for almost two years.

The opposition leader insists that “he really believes” in change.

“2020 was a great change in the mentality in Belarus. I don’t know how long it will take, but that change will not disappear.”