"Belarus Opposition Leader Sees No Alternatives to Street Protests”
October 20, 2006

According to the International Herald Tribune, Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich, who has spent time in jail for anti-government protests, claims that the dictatorial regime of President Alexander Lukashenko can only be removed “if people take it to the streets.”  He goes on to say that it would be “impossible to do so (remove Lukashenko) in elections.”  Milinkevich believes that the “regime wou
ld not change even if we win (the elections),” citing the impossibility to properly tally the votes. 

In the October 9th edition of the Prague Daily Monitor Milinkevich said some of the actions taken by President Lukashenko’s regime that have hurt the democratization process.  Opposition forces to the government have been expelled from schools and fired from their jobs according to Milinkevich, who goes on to explain “the opposition force is becoming the force of the jobless.”  The end result is people cannot “fight for ideals and democracy when their children have nothing to eat.”

Freedom House classified Belarus as “one of the world’s worst regimes”, echoing the Prague Daily Monitor’s assertion that President Lukashenko is “the last European dictator.”  In the 2006 Freedom House publication Freedom in the World, political rights in Belarus have fallen from a “6” to a “7”, the lowest rating that Freedom House offers.  The same publication also grades civil liberties as a “6”, and classified Belarus as “not free.”

The fall of the political rights ranking in Freedom in the World this year is “due to massive falsifications in the country’s October parliamentary election and referendum on the presidency”, as well as “an unrelenting campaign against independent media, political parties, and civic groups”, according to Freedom House. 

Sources:

International Herald Tribune: Belarus' Milinkevich says elections can't bring end to his country's authoritarian regime

Prague Monitor: Belarussian opposition leader: Changes in Minsk to come from the streets

Freedom House: Freedom in the World 2006

Freedom House: World's Worst Regimes Revealed