The police massively delay the protesters, the sites of the largest media do not work, Lukashenko (according to the CEC) is gaining 80% of the vote

The main thing about elections in Belarus

On August 9, the presidential election was held in Belarus . Polling stations closed at 20:00 local time (coincides with Moscow). According to official state exit regulations, the current President Alexander Lukashenko is gaining 79.7% of the vote, his main rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is 6.8%. The exit pollar of the STV channel gave Lukashenko 71.4% of the vote, Tikhanovskaya-10.1%. In the areas abroad, according to the ecsit regulations, the situation is the opposite-there Tikhanovskaya has an overwhelming advantage. The first published CECs give 81% of the vote to Lukashenko, 8% Tikhanovskaya. The CEC intends to announce the final results on August 14.

The elections passed with a very high turnout. According to official data from the CEC, at 20:00 it amounted to 84.05% - at the same time in the morning it was officially reported that 42% of voters voted ahead of schedule. In many sites before closing, the lines of those who wanted to vote were formed-because of this, ten plots continued to work in Minsk after 20:00, although earlier the head of the CEC Lidia Ermoshin emphasized that all the sites would close on time and urged not to come to them in the evening. Not everyone managed to vote in sites abroad - in particular, at embassies in Moscow, in Warsaw and in Kyiv. They did not have time to vote in these cities staged pickets near the embassies demanding to extend the work of the plots; In Moscow, riot police pushed the gathered from the building of the diplomatic mission, but no one was detained.

During the day, the Internet in Belarus worked with interruptions . Users reported problems with Telegram and Viber messengers, as well as with VPN services. The users of the state operator of Beltelecom Communications have problems with loading any sites in general. Also, during the day, sites of independent agencies and publications such as “Our Niva” and Kyky.org ceased to work. After the end of the vote, the largest independent portal of the country TUT.BY and the website of the BelTA State Agency were inaccessible.

After the closing of the plots on the streets in large cities of Belarus, thousands of people reached . Law enforcement officers blocked the main areas, trying to prevent the collection of opponents of Lukashenko; Between them and the protesters, skirmishes began. In Minsk, the police used waterlets and light -school grenades to disperse demonstrators - as a result, several people were injured. One person was shot down by a car carrier who drove into a crowd of people who tried to block the road. Protesters began to build barricades, and law enforcement officers to block the main highways. In several other cities, in particular, in Kobrin and Bobruisk, riot police removed the helmets, lowered the shields and did not disperse the protesters. At the same time, it is reported about hard accelerations in Gomel and Brest, where, according to preliminary information, the police used tear gas. In total, according to the Vesna human rights center, 47 people were detained in Minsk, 119. At about hour in the morning, when thousands of people remained on the streets, the police officially stated that she controls the situation.

Grigory Levchenko