Belarus opposition leader urges people to avoid protesting against election

OTTAWA - The exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition is advising people in the Eastern European nation not to protest against elections in January, saying it is too risky to intervene in a ritual expected to hand President Alexander Lukashenko a seventh term.

Lukashenko's election win in 2020 triggered unprecedented demonstrations by protesters accusing him of rigging the poll.

Police quelled the protests and human rights groups say some 30,000 were detained for various periods of time.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020 and later went into exile, said she feared another crackdown if people went out into the streets this time.

"We can't allow protests at the moment, because for four years people experience such brutal repressions," she told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday in Ottawa.

"These so-called elections are not the trigger that people need. So I'm asking people not to sacrifice themselves," she said.

If Belarusians were forced to go to the polls, she said, they could choose an existing option on the ballot form allowing them to vote against all the candidates - in effect not registering a vote for anyone standing for office.

"We ask them to put this tick in front of 'Against Everybody' ... if you are not forced to go to the polling station, you can ignore (the election)," she said.

Lukashenko and his supporters deny he has rigged elections and say the overwhelming majority of voters back him.

"I don't decide whether or not I am in power or not. ... The people entrusted me with this high office," he told reporters in July 2023.

The Belarus interior ministry last week said police would conduct drills ahead of the election to ensure that "manifestations of extremism and terrorism" were prevented.

In a statement issued to Reuters on Wednesday, Tsikhanouskaya said: "We are not asking people to give up but rather to continue protesting in safe and meaningful ways ... I am not encouraging people to take to the streets."

The Belarus interior ministry last week said police would conduct drills ahead of the election to ensure that "manifestations of extremism and terrorism" were prevented.

Lukashenko, 70, who has been in power in the former Soviet state since 1994 and is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is running for a seventh term in office on Jan. 26.

Tsikhanouskaya, who is now based in Lithuania and has a heavy security presence, called on the international community not to recognize the results and said democracies "might be braver", in particular by imposing more sanctions.

"I understand it might somehow disturb (the) comfortable life of citizens of your countries, but sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice a little bit of comfort for bigger aims," she said.

Despite the police presence, and the fact that 500,000 people left the country of 9 million after 2020, people are forming underground movements in acts of defiance against Lukashenko, she said.

"Our fight, our task is to weaken him economically, to weaken him politically," she said, predicting that as soon as the repressions ended, people would be in the streets again.

"When the moment comes, believe me, people will be vocal, people will be visible."

Since July, Lukashenko has issued six sets of pardons for political prisoners. Human rights groups say more than 1,200 detainees labeled as political prisoners remain in detention.

Tsikhanouskaya's husband Syarhei Tsikhanouski has been in jail since 2020 after being barred from taking part in the election that his wife contested instead.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Philippa Fletcher)