As someone from Belarus, this is not true at all.

While Lukashenko had some support prior to Aug 2020 election, it dropped to <5% at very best following his ruthless attack and torture of citizens and peaceful protestors.

The only people supporting him now are siloviki, i.e. military and police heads who directly benefit from him remaining in power. Although many within the police elites wish him out as well.

It is generally hard to reason about public support in an authoritarian state, because such states largely control the access to information. So yes, people do hold opinions, but how do they go about forming these opinions? How many are in a position to make an informed decision?

This is an interesting topic btw. As someone who grew up in USSR I would have to note that nobody took soviet propaganda seriously. People knew media is lying and took all information with a HUGE grain of salt. Meanwhile information is interpreted, silenced and manipulated in (at least mainstream) media all around the world. But people there often take that information for granted because they have trust in there media and believe they live in a free world. And cmon I watch western news a lot and it's full of NLP stamps and very strong opinions which you wouldn't expect from professional journalism but it's just there. The sad truth is that we all live in dystopia. Especially with modern technologies. No KGB or stasi ever dreamed of such having information about peoples lives as some facebook(or government agencies) now have. The scary thing is not surveillance it's mass surveillance. When some opposition can be detected until even they did something wrong just by some patterns like books they read or visiting hackers news.

> How many are in a position to make an informed decision?

State TV was not very popular even when I lived there some 20ish years ago, and now everyone and their grandma gets their news from Telegram. Telegram usage dropped a bit because many are afraid of having it on their devices, but it is still by far the most popular way of getting news.

It's really hard to estimate the number of those who continue watching state TV. The least educated and people with disabilities watch easy-to-reach Russian propaganda channels as much if not more. Those are at least captivating ;-).

I do wonder, and apologies if this is naive, but with Russian being the de facto official language in Belarus, is it clear that the siloviki are even Belarusian, not Russian? Would you know if the row of riot police were Russian?

I heard this narrative before, and it strikes me as odd that you would find enough people to bully its own nation into submission - physically in the streets.

But of course that happened in Poland too, where Russian was never a widely spoken language, so clearly it’s possible.

Oh yes, it's totally possible, and happened in Ukraine as well. Generally, a person is not inclined to think what they're doing is wrong, if their paycheck depends on it.

What do you think Belarus will be like in 2 years? Civil war? Coup? Lukashenko exiled or still in power? Democracy? Russia invading?

Russia won't have to invade, it's more likely Belarus will be willingly annexed.

Civil war is impossible, the nation is united and doesn't want violence (all protests so far have been peaceful).

Coup would've already happened if it could, there is very little chance for it now. Lukashenko has spent decades surrounding himself with loyalist.

With silence and little pressure from Europe and the US towards both Belarus and Russia (apart from symbolic "concerns"), things are unlikely to change.

As long as Putin is in power, Lukashenko will remain in power.

There are many political points for Putin to gain within Russia by annexing Belarus, so that's something that could very well happen in the next few months.

Putin and Lukashenko have had several meetings in regards to Belarus integration over the last few months, with Lukashenko getting $1.5B in donations to support his regime after these meetings. So this seems like the likely scenario. And the time frame is much shorter <12mo.

> There are many political points for Putin to gain within Russia by annexing Belarus, so that's something that could very well happen in the next few months.

But it won't happen until Lukashenko thinks there is benefit for Lukashenko. On the bottom line, he doesn't care if it benefits Putin or not.

Where do you get that number? 5%? From Belsat tv? I'm not from Belarus but I think you are detached from reality. Go to some village or factory where people drink CHERNILA. They all would support Lukashenko. And for a good reason - many would lose their jobs. Because their factory producing some military electronics for Russian tanks would close after losing access to Russian market.

As first generation out of Portuguese dictatorship, this is unfortunately how it starts.

When everyone realises their mistake there is no turning back for several years to come.

Also Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó wasn't elected. He and his US backers keep shouting "no, I'm the president" and "yes you are" respectively doesn't make it so. It's gangster capitalism Monroe doctrine to install another Pinochet or Branco.

The US calls Maduro a "dictator" despite being elected. The reason the US does is simple: money (which uses US ideological politics as a means-to-an-end), since he specifically stated his purpose after the death of Chávez: "Compatriots, I am not here out of personal ambition, out of vanity, or because my surname Maduro is a part of the rancid oligarchy of this country. I am not here because I represent financial groups, neither of the oligarchy nor of American imperialism ... I am not here to protect mafias nor groups nor factions. IOW, because he wouldn't sell-out his own people or his own country, so he's been marked for death/removal, his people marked for sanctions, and Fox News leads the charge smearing the man and the country to make some vampiric rich Americans more money.

Venezuela is a dictatorship, not because Chavez wasn't elected, but because once elected, he put his finger more and more on the scales of the elections. He arrested opposition leaders so that they couldn't run effective campaigns. When Chavez died and Maduro came to power, he did more of the same, destroying the independence of the judiciary, and shutting down the opposition legislature.

Venezuela is a dictatorship whether or not Guaido won the last election. It's a dictatorship because the government took enough steps that it was impossible for anyone but Maduro to win.

I didn't say anything about Guaidó.

I stated that Venzuala was another example where "It is similar I think to the situation in the US where poor people will sometimes vote against their financial interests to support an identity."

In Venezuala's case: poor people would rather support unsustainable state subsidies and industries, at the long term cost of running their economy and currency into the ground.

Godwin's law exception: Hitler and Mussolini were voted-in.

Masses of gullible idiots take much longer to realize (if ever because of ego protection) it was a bad idea after-the-fact, while students of history saw it coming. This is why direct "democracy" is a terrible idea. Governance by popularity is stupid. Ask Socrates.

Well, Hitler never won an election. He was thought to be a convenient idiot by his coalition partners, serious politicians.

I’ll just leave that thought hanging there.

That's true. I just realized everything I knew was a lie. :D

NSDAP goose-stepped into office without winning a plurality of votes, almost like what happens in other countries with Electoral Colleges.

Actually, Hitler was never voted in. His party never got majority, they took the power in non-democratic ways.

Oh, please! I'm from Belarus. It hurts me to hear such words. I know people who support Lukashenko but I'd say it's truly just 3%. We have a lot of evidence that he doesn't have support but they are Junta. And it's not just words. I could go to jail for this message... Read it https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57320591

By all reasonable measures, he got 3% support in the recent elections. Around 5mln people voted, which gives 150,000 who voted for him. This is pretty much the current "elite", that is, people with a slightly higher than average life quality: local officials, school heads, upper management at state-owned organisations, security services, high-ranking officers... and their families.

You can still be a hostage even if you want to be one.

Recent election showed otherwise. Even most loyal public (elderly rural populace) turned out from him.

He knew that of course, otherwise why did he jailed all the opposition candidates right before elections?

> It is similar I think to the situation in the US where poor people will sometimes vote against their financial interests to support an identity.

I would like you to pause there for a moment and suspend what you already know to be true and factual. Just consider that this analysis does not explain the popularity of Republicans among the rural poor, but it does allow Democrats to explain this inconvenient fact away.

The sad reality is that neither party actually cares for the poor and working class, but at least the Republicans are honest about it. The rural poor generally know this, and this is why Clinton lost. They did not feel her to be an honest person.