{"id":1434,"date":"2006-03-20T22:22:51","date_gmt":"2006-03-21T04:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2006-03-20T22:24:11","modified_gmt":"2006-03-21T04:24:11","slug":"belarus-president-faces-challenge-from-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1434","title":{"rendered":"Belarus President Faces Challenge from Protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"

After victory in an election that the U.S. has decidedly declared<\/a> “invalid,” the president of Belarus is trying to ride out a swarm<\/a> of protests.<\/p>\n

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko faced a challenge to his electoral victory on Tuesday from international critics and protesters who camped out in the capital overnight accusing him of rigging the count.<\/p>\n

Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and criticized in the West for authoritarian Soviet-style rule, swept back into office on Monday with an official tally of 82.6 percent.<\/p>\n

Nearest rival Alexander Milinkevich, with 6 percent, called the poll fraudulent, a view shared widely in the West.<\/p>\n

About 300 protesters defied warnings by Lukashenko’s state security services and camped out in the early hours in dozens of tents in an action reminiscent of the highly organized 2004 “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Supporters brought sleeping bags, food, hot drinks and blankets to them.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said riot police were stationed in sidestreets near the square but there was no sign of any action against the unsanctioned rally, summoned by Milinkevich to demand a rerun of the election and denounce Lukashenko’s human rights policies.<\/p>\n

“We must stay here while we have the strength to do so. We must stay until victory,” Milinkevich told the rally on Monday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unsurprisingly, Publius Pundit<\/a>‘s Robert Mayer comes through with some of the best blogging on the region, this time providing lengthy and oft-updated coverage<\/a> of the protest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After victory in an election that the U.S. has decidedly declared “invalid,” the president of Belarus is trying to ride out a swarm of protests. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko faced a challenge to his electoral victory on Tuesday from international critics and protesters who camped out in the capital overnight accusing him of rigging the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}