"The Combination of These Three Factors Will Force Lukashenka to Surrender"
- 11.11.2020, 8:24
Protest moods in Belarus will only grow.
On Sunday, November 8, the security forces staged a massive "khapun" (dispersal) in Minsk, detaining more than a thousand people throughout the country.
Director of the Institute Political Sphere and Doctor of Political Sciences Andrei Kazakevich in a commentary to udf.by noted that, despite this, protest moods will grow, including taking on other forms.
"This does not mean that protest moods are disappearing: they will probably take on some other forms and accumulate," Kazakevich said.
The authorities contribute to the preservation of protest sentiments.
"In order for the protest moods to subside, the problems that caused them must be resolved. So far, we see that the authorities have not made any progress in this direction," Kazakevich said.
What can force the regime to surrender?
"A combination of factors. Protest pressure will only have an effect if it is long term. The economic situation can further complicate the position of the authorities. Plus external pressure. The combination of these three factors with a high degree of probability can force the authorities to surrender," Kazakevich believes.
Kazakevich added that the protests in Belarus have already led to such results as the de-legitimization of Lukashenka, the weakening of his positions inside the country and abroad, and the de-organization of the vertical.
The politician Viktar Karneenka noted that there had been only one turning point in the Belarusian protests so far.
"On August 9, when the results of the presidential elections were rigged with special cynicism and arrogance, which launched the whole process. Belarus will not be the same again. Lukashenka recently expressed his desire: that everything should be as it was before the elections. But it won't be that way. The protests will take other forms, and the regime has no answers to the question of how to calm people down," Karneenka said.
He does not undertake to predict what will happen next and in what forms "the hatred of the majority of people towards Lukashenka's regime" will take place. But the authorities will no longer be able to restore the former loyalty of society to the authorities.
"The trigger for a new outburst of protest can be an economic crisis and a strike: you can't put AMAP officers to the machines; their hands are not made for that," Karneenka said.