Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said in an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed News from exile in Vilnius, Lithuania, that she — not Alexander Lukashenko — is “the national, chosen president” of Belarus.
. Her supporters said it was rigged in favor of the brutish and mustachioed incumbent Lukashenko, who claimed to have won an astounding 80% of all votes, versus 10% for Tikhanovskaya; the US and the EU said the election was neither free nor fair.
But the crowds of more than 100,000 protesters — comprising students and teachers, tech entrepreneurs and state factory workers, pensioners and others — who have faced off with Lukashenko’s police and military forces have been largely peaceful. A former teacher and English translator, Tikhanovskaya said Lukashenko allowed her on the ballot because he didn’t think she had any chance of winning. The Soviet-esque strongman said during the campaign that a woman president “would collapse, poor thing.” He was more worried about Tikhanovskaya’s husband, popular blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was arrested while trying to register to be on the ballot and is currently languishing in a jail outside of the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
Gone are the evenings at home when Tikhanovskaya said she would cook cutlets for her 10-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter and dream of where the family would take its once-a-year vacation on the Black Sea. Now she spends her days fighting for the future of her country, meeting with European heads of state and top US officials, and briefing the United Nations Security Council.
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