Tikhanovskaya's Campaign Urges Belarusian Authorities to Concede Presidential Election

MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th August, 2020) The campaign of the Belarusian opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Monday urged the country's authorities to concede the election.

On Sunday, a presidential election was held in Belarus. According to the preliminary data, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko has secured 80.23 percent of the vote. Tikhanovskaya's campaign has said it does not recognize the results.

"We will develop mechanisms of the work with authorities, they have to accept defeat and understand that the decision of the Belarusian people cannot be falsified, the decision of the Belarusian people must be taken into account," the campaign representative, Maria Kolesnikova, told a press conference.

Late on Sunday, several Belarusian cities saw unauthorized protests.

Tikhanovskaya herself said she had not expected the authorities to have such a harsh response to the protests and called it unacceptable.

"We have asked the authorities to avoid violence but we were not heard," the politician said.

Tikhanovskaya said she was not planning to leave the country and did not see any reasons why she could be detained.

"We support peaceful changes. The authorities must now be thinking about peaceful transfer of power," the candidate said.