2020 Belarusian election

• Sergei Tikhanovsky was running against Lukashenko before quickly being detained for disturbing public order and in the end his wife ran instead
• Tikhanovskaya wife gained a lot of support throughout the election but lost 80% - 10% and this sparked many protests claiming the election was illegitimate
• In order to run in the election the candidate must acquire 100,000 signatures
• many of the other opposition candidates withdrew, or detained or there were inconsistencies found in their votes etc
• one of Tikanovskaya's rallies had a reported 63,000 - 70,000 people turn up
• Election = 4-6th August, landslide victory for Lukashenko
• The OSCE said that the election did not meet international standards as it lacked transparency and freedom of expression
• Many protests after election e.g. 2nd night after the election protestors barricaded Riga market and security responded with tear gas
• Lukashenko has been accused of rigging the election by the EU and US
• Tikhanovskaya was escorted to Lithuania by security forces - exiled
• Shortly after being escorted to Lithuania Tikhanovskaya relased state sponsored media to stop the protests then a couple of days later she released an independant statement claiming that she won about 70% of the vote and that the elections were rigged
• There have been many arrests since the election including journalists and opposition leaders
• A number of economic sanctions were imposed on Belarus by states within the EU, the US and even the International Olympic Committee
• These elections led to full distrust of the Belarusian government and democracy causing a lack of legitimacy
• Created a further divide between the West and Belarus as Belarus strengthened ties with Russia
• The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe wasn't invited to monitor the elections thus questions the legitimacy of the election
• Realist - only states are the main actors in international relations, and states are the only actors that can influence international relations this is shown due to the fact that protests were not able to overturn election results and only resulted in tighter restrictions
• The economic sanctions weren't effective (limited use of economic hard power)
• Hard power was used in order to silence protestors
• Many journalists left their jobs during the elections due to the heavy propaganda which they had to report on and were replaced by Russian journalists