For many Belarusians, Alexander Lukashenko is the only leader they’ve ever known. He has maintained a tight grip on the country since first becoming president in 1994, but Lukashenko now faces the greatest challenge yet to his rule. He claimed victory in a presidential election earlier this month that was widely decried as fraudulent, and took place amid a wave of pro-democracy protests across the country. The unrest has only grown after official election results showed Lukashenko winning around 80 percent of the vote. A bloody crackdown on protesters by security forces last week left at least two people dead [...]
Which dictator is more trustworthy, Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus? In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because the governments of both Russia and Belarus are probably lying about the arrest last week in Minsk of 33 Russian men identified by Belarusian authorities as mercenaries affiliated with the so-called Wagner Group, a network of private military security contractors linked to U.S.-sanctioned Kremlin insider Yevgeny Prigozhin. For more than a week, speculation has run rife about the arrests and their possible connection to alleged Russian interference in Belarus’ upcoming presidential election on Aug. 9. The mystery surrounding the [...]
Authoritarian leaders have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic, intensifying their efforts to undercut the democratic norms that restrain their power. Some of those leveraging COVID-19 for their autocratic agenda are in the European Union, where they have created dilemmas for the bloc for years. And yet, this crisis has also created opportunities. If managed skillfully, the EU can convert the upheaval of the pandemic into a turning point, at long last exerting meaningful pressure to start reversing Eastern Europe’s undemocratic, illiberal tide. Last month, EU leaders managed to craft a muscular economic rescue package to deal with the pandemic’s [...]
