Belarus Protests Now Dress Rehearsal for Russia in 2024, Yaroshinskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 10 – Many Russians believe that Vladimir Putin will continue to garner majority support because there is no obvious alternative, Alla Yaroshinskaya says; but they have failed to recognize that Belarusians have gone into the streets not because they support an alternative but because they are fed up with Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

            The very same thing could happen with Putin four years from now, and that means, the Ukrainian commentator suggests, that what is occurring in the streets of Belarus now may be a dress rehearsal for that, a possibility that makes the Belarusian events even more important for Moscow officials and the Russian opposition (rosbalt.ru/world/2020/08/10/1857887.html).

            Putin, like Lukashenka, has usurped power and worked to eliminate from the political scene all the most plausible opponents. But that may not save either of them. The Belarusians have shown that they want Lukashenka out even if they don’t have an obvious replacement; it is entirely possible that Russians will do the same with their own homegrown dictator.

            As the people of many countries have learned, in a dictatorship, the individual in charge has all kind of advantages to maintain himself or herself in power. But those do not include preventing people from becoming fed up if that dictator remains in power too long. Like Lukashenka, Putin will have been in power for more than two decades by 2024.

            The Russian people are increasingly fed up with him, the Ukrainian commentator says; and it is thus likely they will follow the Belarusian model of opposing him even if he succeeds in eliminating opposition candidates. That is something both the Kremlin and analysts of Russian politics need to devote more attention to than they have up to now.