The official result in Belarus, which gives Alexander Lukashenko almost 80% of the vote, has little to do with reality
STUN GRENADES, an internet blackout, water cannons, tear-gas, armoured personnel carriers and bloodied protesters. These are not the signs of the great popular support claimed by Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, following an election on August 9th. But after 26 years in charge of a small country sandwiched between Russia and Poland, these are the only means by which the longest-serving autocrat in Europe can stay in power—for now.
This time, however, the scale of protest and the level of violence unleashed by the state against its own people suggests that Mr Lukashenko did not just rig an election to make his victory more impressive. He may have actually lost the election. This is all the more significant since his challenger was not a politician or a traditional leader of the opposition.
Even before polling stations opened on August 9th, the obedient central electoral commission announced that some 40% of Belarusians had already cast their votes in preliminary ballots. But on election day itself, queues of voters outside polling stations eagerly waiting to get rid of Mr Lukashenko stretched over several kilometres. When they were told that less than 10% of them had voted for Ms Tikhanovskaya, they came onto the streets in great numbers to protest.
Ms Tikhanovskaya has refused to accept the rigged result. She has good reason to think that she might have won. The real numbers may never be known but in a few polling stations in Minsk where independent observers managed to stop the rigging, Ms Tikhanovskaya won between 70% and 80% of the votes. She has appealed to the police and the armed forces not to fight their own people, and called on the government to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power. But the chances of this taking place are slim.
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