BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17 Nov 2005 17:50:10 GMT

Lukashenko says Belarus opposition has no backing

Source: Reuters

By Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing human rights, said on Thursday rivals hoping to vote him out of office next year enjoyed dwindling popular support.

Entitled to run for a new term next year after a disputed referendum on constitutional change, Lukashenko said the liberal and nationalist opposition also had little hope of winning over young voters or businessmen.

In a speech to students in eastern Belarus, he repeated his vow that "coloured revolutions" that helped overturn governments in ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia were doomed to fail.

"By pledging to fight not for life but to the death by seizing power, they must face the fact that they will get no support from workers, factories, farmers, the military and the elderly," Lukashenko said of opposition activists.

His opponents were wrong in hoping to enlist young people, entrepreneurs and academics to stage an upheaval like the "Orange Revolution" that helped propel liberal Viktor Yushchenko to power in neighbouring Ukraine.

"The experience of coloured revolutions shows participants start by protesting in squares and end up smashing state institutions, private shops and small street kiosks," BelTA news agency quoted him as saying in the town of Mogilev.

"They find it harder and harder to hide behind schoolchildren and students in opposing the will of the Belarussian people."

Lukashenko, who remains genuinely popular, expecially outside big cities, denies violating fundamental rights. He says his administration has spared Belarussians the upheavals of other ex-Soviet states.

The opposition has overcome recurring divisions and named independent Alexander Milinkevich as the sole challenger to the president in next year's contest.

Lukashenko cited figures from an unpublished opinion poll giving him 90 percent support in rural areas, 84 percent in small towns and 67 percent among respondents in the capital Minsk.

Before Lukashenko spoke, opposition activists said eight members of the Zubr (Bison) youth group had been detained without charge in Mogilev. Police made no comment.

Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is regularly accused of cracking down on opponents, with Western countries demanding explanations for the disappearance of several prominent opposition figures and journalists.

He is also accused of stifling the media, rigging elections, including the 2001 presidential poll and the constitutional referendum last year and of clinging to Soviet-era economics.

The European Union has threatened to impose new, stiffer sanctions unless authorities stage a free and fair presidential poll next year. A top U.S. diplomat said repression in the country of 10 million was becoming as severe as in Soviet times.

Source:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17266963.htm