Workers strike in Belarus as opposition leader urges unity

Bloomberg

Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said she’s ready to be interim president in place of incumbent Alexander Lukashenko as national strikes were starting a day after the country’s biggest opposition protest.
“I am ready to take responsibility and act in this period as national leader” until new presidential elections are held, Tikhanovskaya said in a video address published on Monday, in which she called for unity. “Genuine, honest, and transparent elections that will unquestionably be recognised by the international community.”
As Tikhanovskaya spoke from exile in Lithuania, thousands of employees in major Belarusian state-run factories walked out in support of calls for a general strike.
Lukashenko dismissed the strikers as a small minority of workers during a visit on Monday to the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, saying “If they don’t want to work, we won’t force them,” state TV reported.
Crowds of people, including workers from other factories, gathered outside the gates of the plant, booing Lukashenko and chanting for him to resign. Employees also interrupted
the president as he spoke inside the plant, calling on him to go, according to video posted on Telegram by the Nexta news service.
Tikhanovskaya’s campaign ally, Maria Kalesnikava, urged striking workers to nominate representatives to a national
coordination council being formed by the opposition movement. The strikes started after hundreds of thousands of people joined peaceful rallies in the capital, Minsk, and in cities across the country calling for Lukashenko’s resignation and the release of detainees.
After thousands were detained in brutal police crackdowns in the days that followed the disputed August 9 presidential election, security forces have largely stood aside since last week as the protests swelled amid public anger.
Lukashenko, who held his own much smaller rally, has appealed to Russia for support, twice speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the weekend.
Russia is ready to provide assistance to Belarus in “resolving the problems” that arose after the election, including within the countries’ security alliance “if necessary,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
It’s unclear how Russia could provide assistance through the collective defense pact unless there was an external threat to Belarus, said Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a research group that advises the Kremlin. “I think this is Lukashenko’s move to scare his own people — ‘if not me, then Putin’,” Lukyanov said.
The protests, which started with Lukashenko’s claim of a landslide victory with 80% of the vote, have spiraled into the largest ever seen in Belarus, fuelled by anger at the severity of the police violence, including accusations of torture and the deaths of at least two people.
The Kremlin was betting that Lukashenko would manage to extend his 26-year rule for a sixth term, with his harsh tactics leaving him isolated in the West and ever more dependent on Russia.
Lukashenko has been resisting Russian demands for closer political and economic integration, wary of a takeover by his larger neighbour.