JRL NEWSWATCH: “People are finally fed up with Belarus’s leader. Will they be heard?” – Washington Post Editorial

“[Belarus president] Alexander Lukashenko … is a fabled fence-walker, balancing between East and West. … a recidivist election fixer, rigging presidential contests, and a notorious strongman who tolerates little dissent. … [keeping] him in power for a quarter of a century. But as he seeks a sixth term in a[n] [Aug. 9] presidential election … he confronts … discontent. … Lukashenko has survived past challenges, by portraying himself as the only choice for stability, rigging the election and jailing foes. But this time he faces unhappiness not only over economic stagnation but also … his lackluster pandemic response … ridiculing concerns about the virus and advising people to head to the sauna and drink more vodka. Now, Belarus has 59,945 [Covid-19] cases … in a population of 9.4 million, while neighboring Poland has 32,821 in a population four times larger. …”

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