ANALYSIS: "Lukashenko thought she was harmless - but she was not"

Turnout was high and incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko received 80 percent of the vote. Opposition candidate Svetlana Tichanovskaya won ten percent. So Lukashenko's grip on the country continues for at least another five years.

Still, it may be that it swings a little under Lukashenko's feet. His harsh actions against the three men who thought they could challenge him if the power suggests it. The three each collected the signatures required to run in the presidential election, but that did not help. Two of them were imprisoned and the third chose to go into exile. But then the wife of one of the detainees also started collecting signatures.

"A woman," Lukashenko snorted. And so he had Svetlana Tichanovskaya register her candidacy, apparently because he considered her completely harmless.

But she was not. Around Belarus, tens of thousands of people have taken part in election rallies and demonstrations in support of her and in protest against Lukashenko. And that's something new. In the past, quite large protests used to break out when another landslide victory for Lukashenko was presented by the electoral authority. This time the demonstrations began before the election, and not just in Minsk.

No one seriously believed that Tikhanovskaya could threaten Lukashenko. His grip on power is almost total, and not least thanks to his enormous propaganda apparatus, he also has the support of quite a few voters. They see him as the guarantor of the country's stability. But large numbers of voters - government employees, among others - were more or less forced to vote for Lukashenko. Many voted several days in advance and it was election officials tasked with securing a landslide victory for Lukashenko who guarded the ballot box.

In addition, Lukashenko has learned something important from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who said: “It is not who votes who matters. The important thing is who counts the votes. " And as long as the Electoral Commission in Belarus counts the votes on behalf of Lukashenko, his election victories are guaranteed.

And should it ever start leaking figures that show that Lukashenko cheated for another term as president, he still has a trump card in hand. He has total control over the military, security and police. And he has no qualms.

But this time it is not just human rights activists who are protesting. Ordinary people in the country's provinces do the same. And more importantly: aspiring private entrepreneurs, IT experts and other well-educated people who want to move away from the state-controlled inefficient system that is Lukashenko's model. It is not likely to go fast, but perhaps the development towards democracy in Belarus has now begun in earnest.