Why Lukashenka Clings to Power and How the Belarusian People Can Win

New York, Columbia University (bielarus.info) – Autocratic rulers are on shaky ground today. More and more people worldwide are standing up for their rights. The most recent protests in Georgia, Slovakia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Iran, Myanmar, and Mozambique demonstrate this global trend.

People demand that their rights be respected and that their governments follow the rules of law. Corrupt governments respond to protests with repression and violence. Organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW) step in during these critical moments, monitoring abuses and pressuring autocrats. Despite monitoring situations of human rights abuse in the countries, HRW is working actively to influence autocrats.

On Monday, March 3rd, 2025, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch for thirty years, presented his book ‘Righting Wrong’ at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

In his book, Kenneth Roth details the strategies used to pressure oppressive governments “to increase the price of oppression.”

In our turn, we asked Mr. Roth to share his view on the situation in Belarus with us. We spoke with Mr. Roth about Belarus, asking for his perspective on Lukashenka’s rule and possible paths to change. Here’s what he shared with bielarus.info:

“The human rights record of Belarus under President Lukashenka has long been a disappointment. While other European parts of the former Soviet Union moved in a democratic direction, the Belarus government joined with Russia to resist becoming accountable to its people. The government became devoted to little more than perpetuating Lukashenka’s dictatorial rule.

The situation became far more acute when, by all appearances, Lukashenka lost the 2020 election. The large-scale popular protests made clear that the people of the country wanted democracy, but Lukashenka used sheer brutality to cling to power. It has become so bad that Lukashenko has even resorted to subordinating Belarus’s sovereignty to Russia to secure Putin’s support for his dictatorship.

Given the unpopularity of that move, Lukashenka continues to try to balance between Europe and Moscow. Pressure from Europe, in particular, accounts for his periodic release of a handful of political prisoners, often after promises to cooperate with security services and to participate in propaganda videos. But the reason he continues to detain a significant majority of his political prisoners, often in cruel conditions of isolation and the denial of needed medical care, is because he realizes that the use and threat of prison are all that keep the people of the country from reviving their protests to end his autocratic rule.

That is a short-term strategy. People see when a tyrant is serving himself rather than his people. It has become virtually impossible for Lukashenka to hide this narrow rationale for his government. With so little valid reason for his presidency, he has few options but to resort to repression – and the support of Putin – to stay in power.

Contrasting Ukraine with Belarus is instructive. The people of Ukraine have made absolutely clear their preference for democracy, even resisting Putin’s invasion in defense of democracy. There is no reason to believe that the people of Belarus are any different in their political desires. Putin eagerly backs Lukashenka’s dictatorship because he is terrified of a democratic contagion in the region that might mobilize the people of Russia again to seek democracy for themselves. A determination to quash such a democratic model for the Russian people is the main reason that Putin invaded Ukraine. The same motive lies behind his support for Lukashenka’s autocratic rule.

One major strategy for combatting autocrats such as Lukashenka is to demonstrate how they serve themselves over the people of the country. They like to put on airs of serving the people, but their actual governance shows the opposite. The more people see the self-serving core of their rule, the more autocrats must resort to repression rather than popular acquiescence to stay in power. That is not a good long-term strategy.

The people of Belarus were hardly alone in coming to the streets in support of democracy. They were joined in recent years by people in Hong Kong, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Russia, Uganda, Poland, Cuba, and Nicaragua. There are few rallies for autocratic rule. That in some of these countries, like Belarus, the autocrat has been able to cling to power by repression doesn’t change the fact that they are on the wrong side of history. Their time will come.”

We thank Mr. Kenneth Roth for his insight and recommend his book “Righting Wrongs” to everybody interested in defending human rights and fighting repressive political regimes.