Will mass protests change the future for Belarus? 

Will Belarusians still be subject to the authoritarianism, brutality, and iron grip of Alexander Lukashenko, or might yesterday’s mass protests in Minsk make a difference?

Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the center of Minsk yesterday. Picture: Sergei Grits/ AP

Despite the tightening grip of Covid-19, and its draining economic fallout, the great struggles of ordinary life — and history — continue. This morning almost 10m Belarusians will, like everyone else, begin a new week — but they will have a better idea of what their immediate future might hold. Will they, as they have been for 26 years, still be subject to the authoritarianism, brutality, and iron grip of Alexander Lukashenko, or might yesterday’s mass protests in Minsk turn the country towards a different future? 

If Lukashenko again uses force to quell those protests, it will show he has the continuing support of Moscow and feels free to ignore the great number of Belarusians who fear that the recent election, which apparently gave Lukashenko 80% of the popular vote, was compromised.

Russia may view these events with a self-serving paternalism, but the European Union can only look on as another eastern European country struggles to make democracy real. That neighbouring Poland went through a similar process 40 years ago but is today is in the tightening grip of a leader more like Lukashenko than those who champion the European project might like to admit, must deepen concerns.

It may be tempting to dismiss these protests as another storm in a samovar along Russia’s uneasy borderlands but the last thing the world needs right now is another flashpoint with the potential to run out of control.