MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th February, 2021) Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former Belarusian presidential candidate in exile whom the opposition claims to be the true victor, announced on Sunday a series of visits to Finland, Portugal, and Switzerland from March 1-10.
Tikhanovskaya will first travel to Finland from March 1-4 to "discuss the situation in Belarus and Finland's support of the Belarusian civil society," the statement on her website read. The agenda includes meetings with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, among other officials.
"After Finland, on March 4-7, [Tikhanovskaya] will visit Portugal ... On March 7-10, the leader of democratic Belarus will visit Switzerland to meet the UN and the Swiss parliament representatives," the statement read.
While in Portugal, Tikhanovskaya will meet with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva and ex-President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, according to the statement.
During the meetings with European politicians, Tikhanovskaya will discuss the crisis in Belarus, including the riots, and the ways in which she thinks the European Union can support Belarusian human rights activists and independent media.
Since the August 9 presidential election, which saw incumbent Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko entering his sixth term, Belarus has been engulfed in a nationwide unrest, with the opposition rejecting the official results, according to which, Lukashenko gathered over 80 percent of the vote, and claiming electoral fraud.
Some Western countries condemned the violent suppression of rallies by the government's security forces and imposed sanctions on a number of Belarusian officials, deemed responsible for violence and alleged fraud. Tikhanovskaya, in turn, fled to Lithuania and has been rallying support from Western countries ever since.�
