The candidate favorite to win is the same as it has been for the past 26 years—Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader who has ruled the former Soviet country since 1994.
. Tens of thousands of people have joined peaceful rallies in the capital Minsk, as well as thousands more in small towns across the country. A rally in Minsk last month was the largest demonstration in Belarus since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Tikhanovskaya reluctantly stepped into the role after her husband, Sergey Tikhanovsky, a popular blogger was jailed and prevented from running in the election. Tikhanovskaya's campaign platform is simple: to free political prisoners and then call new free and fair elections within six months. She said she does not want to remain a politician if Lukashenko steps down.
Yaroslav Romanchuk, an economist who ran as a candidate against Lukashenko in 2010 said the authorities' response had reminded him of the Soviet reaction to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Lukashenko has claimed to uncover foreign plots before previous elections and many analysts said they suspected this was at least partly a pre-election spectacle. But the men detained this time also appear to be real, with some previously known to reporters as having fought in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has expressed interest in extraditing some of them.
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