8/31/20
MINSK -- Belarusian presidential challenger Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya will address the UN Security Council amid weeks of protests demanding that longtime authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka step down after "rigged" elections. According to Tsikhanouskaya’s team, she will address the Security Council on September 4 by video link at the invitation of Estonia, which is currently a nonpermanent member of the body. She will also address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) four days later, her spokesman said on August 31. Tsikhanouskaya was a presidential candidate in the August 9 election in Belarus, which her supporters say she won. She left the county for Lithuania after the election authorities declared Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, the winner. The result sparked the largest protests seen in the country since it declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on August 31 that his country, along with Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia, will announce travel sanctions on some 30 Belarusian officials, including Lukashenka, as a response to election violations and violence against protesters. Tens of thousands of Belarusians streamed into the center of the capital, Minsk, on August 30 chanting, “Happy birthday, rat” and “Leave” as they gathered outside the presidential palace where Lukashenka is currently staying. Many carried anti-Lukashenka signs, while one group carried a black coffin. Lukashenka, who was celebrating his 66th birthday, last week described the protesters as “rats.” The BelaPAN news agency put the number of protesters in Minsk at more than 100,000. Belarus has been rocked by three weeks of protests and strikes after the nation’s election commission claimed Lukashenka won a new six-year term in a landslide victory. The opposition claimed the election was marred by irregularities and rigged in Lukashenka’s favor.
