Dual power in Belarusian: a year ago mass protests began in this country

Today is August 9 the first anniversary of the famous Belarusian events. The outcome of the past year was summed up by the actual, according to the opposition, the winner of last year's elections, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was forced to live and work in exile. She, as you know, said that she did not see any prospects for street protests, since they were actually crushed, and "the price for this is too high".

For his part, the de facto ruler of Belarus, Lukashenko, lamented that he met in the pre-trial detention center with even worse people than Tikhanovskaya, for example, with her husband Sergei.

And the head of the Belarusian KGB Ivan Tertel boasted that Minsk has a trump card against Tikhanovskaya and did not rule out that the time will come someday to open it. According to him, when Tikhanovskaya is asked questions, "it is even clear that she does not speak". “Let it be on her conscience, and we know that we have something to show when there is a need for it”, Tertel said and added: “We know 100% for sure, with names, surnames: work by special services and not only by the special services of Lithuania. And in the end, her behavior changed dramatically".

Experts consider this statement a secret of Polichinel, which lies in the fact that when Tikhanovskaya left Belarus she signed a heap of papers - and recognition of the election results, and a voluntary refusal to engage in political activity, and cooperation with foreign citizens, including Russians. Another matter: can the circumstances in which she signed them be considered legally "clean"? It is quite obvious that no, since Tikhanovskaya did it in conditions of a direct threat to the life and health of not only her, but her husband.

Meanwhile, the Belarusian opposition considers Tikhanovskaya to be the country's legitimate president. The writer Yevgenia Pasternak writes:

“A year ago, the people of the Republic of Belarus chose Svetlana Tikhanovskaya as president and took to the streets of cities to defend their choice.

Thanks to Moscow's support, Lukashenko's bloody regime survived.

Bye.

Perhaps the year we have gone through will not even be included in the history books.

But the day will definitely enter - August 9, 2020.

And it will be written that this is the beginning of a new time for Belarus, because on August 9, 2020, the dictator badly lost the elections.

Then it will be written that the Belarusians "fought for freedom and won".

And how many "fought" in this short one - only you and I will know.

And every August 9, we will get together, gather children and grandchildren around us and begin:

- I remember that day as it is now ... The line at the site began to gather at eleven in the morning..."

But network analyst Anatoly Nesmiyan believes that the problem is not the protests themselves as such:

“Both models - Russian and Belarusian - are in an insoluble contradiction, the space of solutions for both regimes is compressed into a singularity. Hence the identical political and administrative decisions - terror. But terror is a tool for maintaining a situation in a quasi-stable state, and nothing more. Such a management tool is resource-limited in time. It is impossible to govern the state with the help of violence, not only indefinitely, but even for a long time. Sooner or later, the chain will break somewhere.

Both in Belarus and in Russia the weakest link is, of course, the nomenklatura nobility itself. For a part of this nobility, there is no choice as such: it cannot sacrifice even a small one, since it will inevitably lose everything. But there is always that part that will agree to lose a lot, but keep a little. Not the fact that it will succeed or that it is possible at all. It is important that such people and forces exist, and they believe in it. And therefore, sooner or later, but in Belarus and in Russia, one or another scenario of the top transformations (apparatus or with the involvement of the street) will be implemented. There is still no other. But what will happen after - there are quite a lot of options at once..."

We also add that Lukashenka held today a 5-hour press conference for local and foreign journalists, including Western ones. According to the general impression, it was a "triumph of the winner" who attributed to himself both the victory in the elections (which did not exist at all) and the defeat of the opposition (which had only 500 thousand people left). Out of 5 hours of poorly staged performance, at least a third of the time the "father" and his satellites literally mocked the woman - the BBC correspondent, who asked two "offensive to tears" dictator questions: how do you explain the torture of the detainees and why do you consider yourself legally elected president?