MINSK (Reuters) – Belarus police fired water cannons, tear gas and stun grenades in a crackdown on protests that erupted on Sunday as President Alexander Lukashenko was set to claim another election win in the face of the biggest challenge in years to his grip on power.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Minsk and other cities while protesters clapped, shouted “victory”, waved flags and honked car horns in solidarity with the opposition. Some built barricades with garbage cans.
Video footage showed helmeted police detaining and clashing with protesters.
A police prisoner transport van hit a crowd of people in Minsk, witnesses said, but there were no immediate details of casualties. The authorities said they had no reports of any injuries from the protests.
A former Soviet collective farm manager, the authoritarian Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994 but has battled a wave of anger over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy and his human rights record.
State-approved exit polls showed him winning 79.7% of the vote while his main opponent Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, a former English teacher who emerged from obscurity a few weeks ago to lead rallies against him, received 6.8%.
Tikhanouskaya entered the race after her husband, an anti-government blogger who intended to run, was jailed.
“I’d like to ask the police and troops to remember that they are part of the people. I ask my voters to prevent provocations,” she said in an appeal through the news outlet tut.by. “Please stop the violence.”
Foreign observers have not judged an election to be free and fair in Belarus since 1995.
A harsh response to new protests could hurt Lukashenko’s attempts to mend fences with the West amid fraying ties with traditional ally Russia, which has tried to press Belarus into closer economic and political union.