Ales Bialiatski: With Such "Inauguration " Lukashenka Terminates His Powers

The "ceremony" showed the weakness of the usurper and will cause a new wave of protests.

Ales Bialiatski, chairman of the Vesna human rights center, has commented to Radio Svaboda on the ceremony at the Independence Palace:

- People do not take it as a real inauguration. But he probably couldn't have done it any other way. If the inauguration had been announced in advance, 200 thousand demonstrators would have already been standing here, under his palace. It was either necessary to hold the inauguration secretly, or at a huge demonstration that would not keep silent.

That is why we agreed to such a pathetic option. He is pathetic, he clings to this power, pretending that nothing happens there, outside the walls of his palace. So this is another indicator of Lukashenka's weakness.

With this inauguration, he terminates his presidential powers. Because he becomes an illegitimate president. Such inauguration will cause even greater mass protests against such actions.

Most Belarusians do not consider him a president, but a person who has stolen this power, so this inauguration will not help him in any way. It only makes him legitimate in the eyes of the military junta on which he relies, and in the eyes of his closest allies, primarily Russia and Venezuela. Our social and political crisis, which began during the presidential campaign, is taking a new turn.