The West has long ostracised Lukashenko’s Belarus, described in 2005 by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “Europe’s last dictatorship”, over its human rights record and clampdown on political dissent.
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The six opposition leaders included Mikola Statkevich, a former presidential candidate imprisoned in 2010. However, while he has maintained a close partnership with Russian Federation in his more than 20 years as president, the blustery leader has also made moves suggesting he wants to open up Belarus to the West.
Belarus’s gross domestic product shrank by 3.5 percent in January to August and the average monthly wage has fallen by about a third in dollar terms since the start of the year to $420.
In Minsk’s Central bookstore, where a portrait of President Alexander Lukashenko hangs next to the words of the national anthem, assistants said they had never read her books, but lots of journalists had been seeking out her works.
“No one doubts that Lukashenko will win…”
Police did not interfere with the march and protest rally in Minsk on Saturday.
“As Stalin once said, it’s unimportant who votes or for whom, what matters is who counts the vote”, she said, speaking through a translator, at an event organized by her German publisher. Many oppositional figures have critcized the move, seeing it as a sign the elections are rigged.
Brussels imposed sanctions on Lukashenko’s government after it cracked down on protests during the 2010 elections.
The opposition figures leading the demonstration linked arms at the head of a column of about 400 protesters and urged the crowd to boycott thes vote, while demonstrators shouted slogans such as “Sasha, leave!” referring to Lukashenko, and a few waved European Union flags.
The OSCE will present a report on their election monitoring on Monday, after which Brussels will release a formal statement, an European Union spokesman said.
Though he has been largely dependent on Moscow and isolated from Western Europe, Lukashenko has developed a reputation for successfully playing both sides to his advantage.
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Critics have accused the president and his supporters of preventing the main opposition parties from building any public profile and restricting their access to the all-powerful state-owned media.
