Belarusians head to the polls in January to elect a president. Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and will almost certainly retain his job in a rigged vote that Tsikhanouskaya derides as a “farce.”
But the election “is not [the] time for Belarusian people to go to the streets, to uprise visibly, because you know repressions are too high. Every time in Belarus people are detained, you just don’t see it.”
Tsikhanouskaya ran for president after her husband, a leading opposition candidate, was arrested and jailed during the 2020 election campaign.
The vote sparked mass protests that nearly caused Lukashenko’s downfall — but that were eventually crushed in a brutal Russia-backed campaign to suppress opponents.
Tsikhanouskaya fled Belarus shortly after and has since lived in exile in Lithuania.
“I believe in democracy, but you have to have courage to use all your tools to fight with dictators,” she said.
CORRECTION: This article was updated to correct when Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Belarusians should rise up against Alexander Lukashenko.