MINSK: Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in as president of Belarus on Wednesday in a previously unannounced ceremony in Minsk following a disputed election that has incited daily protests.
Lukashenko, 66, has led Belarus, a former Soviet republic between Russia and EU member state Poland, for more than a quarter-century, tolerating little dissent.
Lukashenko declared during his inauguration, in a private ceremony in Minsk’s Palace of Independence, that the country had averted an attempt at revolution instigated from “nefariously sophisticated” foreign powers.
“An unprecedented challenge was made against our statehood,” Lukashenko said, according to an official transcript. “The colour revolution did not take place,” he said, using a broad term for an apolitical pivot in a former Soviet state.
Electoral authorities say that Lukashenko received more than 80 percent of the votes in the August 9 election. Opposition supporters allege that the election was rigged.
The European Union has declared the election “neither free nor fair.” Germany, Poland and several other EU member states have issued statements saying they would not recognise Lukashenko as president.
Following the surprise inauguration ceremony, German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said in Berlin that the vote did not meet “the minimum requirements for democratic elections.” Poland’s Foreign Ministry expressed a similar sentiment: “A president elected in an undemocratic election cannot be considered as one thatholds his office legally, regardless of whether his swearing-in is official or clandestine.”
Lukashenko has assumed his sixth consecutive term as president. “Placing his right hand on the constitution, Alexander Lukashenko took the oath in the Belarusian language,” state news agency BelTA reported.
In public appearances, Lukashenko usually speaks Russian. Lukashenko’s office said that several hundred people, including senior officials, media representatives and cultural, scientific and sports figures, had been invited to the ceremony.
The event’s date had not been previously announced to the public. Crowds of protesters gathered around central Minsk after the ceremony was revealed to the public, prominent independent news outlet Tut.by reported.
Wearing crowns, protesters mocked Lukashenko as a self-declared ruler. There have been protests in Belarus against Lukashenko’s leadership every day since the election, with such events regularly broken up by police. Weekend rallies in Minsk have repeatedly been estimated to have drawn more than 100,000 people.
Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, has presented himself as a guarantor of stability and socialist policy in the state. Belarus is one of the poorest countries in Europe. — dpa
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