BERLIN, February 28. /TASS/. Belarus’ former presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya says hopes more pressure will be exerted on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko until he finally goes.
"Pressure will be stepped up day after day. One day it will be too much for Lukashenko and he will go," she said in an interview with Germany’s Bild am Sonntag. In her words, it may happen "already this year" or "this spring."
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on August 9, 2020. Incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won by a landslide, garnering 80.10% of the vote. His closest rival in the race, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, came in second, with 10.12% of the ballot. However, she refused to recognize the election’s outcome, and left Belarus for Lithuania. After the results of the exit polls were announced late on August 9, mass protests erupted in downtown Minsk and other Belarusian cities. During the early post-election period, the rallies snowballed into fierce clashes between the protesters and police.
Following the developments in Belarus, the European Union imposed three blocks of sanctions against that country, namely in October, November, and in December 2020, blacklisting 88 individuals and seven companies. The blacklisted individuals are banned to enter the European Union and are denied access to the European Unions banking system. European businesses cannot maintain any contacts with the blacklisted companies, except cases of the implementation of the existing contacts.
The EU ministerial meeting on February 22 yielded a decision to elaborate another package of anti-Belarusian sanctions and to intensify support to opposition forces in that country.