MINSK, March 21. /TASS/. Belarus’ Social Democratic Party has on Sunday its leader Igor Borisov has been detained.

"Leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Gramada) Igor Borisov has been detained," it wrote on its Telegram channel. No further details were given.

Borisov’s wife, Elena, wrote on her Facebook account she and their children has witnessed the detention.

The Belarusian Social Democratic Party was among the opposition forces that had applied for a mass event on the anniversary of the Belarussian People’s Republic marked by the opposition on March 25. According to Grigory Kostusev, the leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, another applicant party, the city’s authorities have not yet replied to the application.

Nationwide demonstrations engulfed Belarus following the August 9 presidential election. According to the Central Election Commission’s official results, 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. Sporadic local protests continue to date. The opposition calls on its supporters for more centralized protests in the spring. The authorities said they knew about the opposition’s plans to stage protests on March 25-27 and were ready to nip them.