Belarus: President Alexander Lukashenko can mobilize fewer supporters than opponents

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Lukashenko supporters in Minsk: The posters are prefabricated; instead of the white, red and white flags of the opposition, the red and green official national flag flies

A week after the controversial presidential election in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko held a showdown in the capital Minsk, a direct comparison, so to speak, between the number of his supporters and that of his opponents. The result, as you can say on Sunday evening, was clearly out.

The size comparison begins on Sunday afternoon on Independence Square. Actually, the opposition wanted to demonstrate here - they are protesting against the obviously manipulated election result (Lukashenko ascribes 80 percent of the votes) and against police violence.

But the president organized a mass rally of his supporters without further ado and they were brought in from all over the country. There are a good ten thousand people, and you can easily tell them outwardly from the Lukashenko opponents who demonstrated here on Friday: not a single poster is hand-painted, all of them are prefabricated; instead of the white, red and white flags of the opposition, the red and green official national flag flies; the audience is older; and it is harder to get people to talk because many are obviously not here of their own accord.

What those present do not know: President Lukashenko himself will speak to them in a 30-minute, highly emotional speech. But until then, 19 other speakers will be taking to the stage next to the Lenin monument. An officer of the notorious Omon special police is among them, a mother with many children, a worker, a doctor, a teacher, an Afghanistan veteran. Almost all of them will swear to the peace in the country, which the other side is threatening, and that everything is in good order, thank God and the President.

Batka, they call him father here

Then Lukashenko comes on stage, greeted by "Batka" calls. Batka, little father, they call him here, and today he appears like a loving, strict father who is a little disappointed in his ungrateful people. He explains what he achieved in the difficult 1990s - but for the younger Belarusians this is a long time ago. He warns against the West: "The NATO people are clinking armored chains on our western border" - but before the elections he warned against Russia's interference.

Now that there is unrest in the country, he has to rely on Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, and he spoke to him twice on the phone these days. He first called the protesters on the opposite side in a friendly manner "lost people", but then called them "rats" and "dirt". He castigates the idea of ​​new elections ("Who should work then?"). He's emotional. His voice cracks every now and then, he dabs his hot forehead, he has taken off his jacket. He speaks largely freely. On his right stands Nikolaj, his 15-year-old son, in a suit and sunglasses. This is also a sign from the President: My family is in the country. I do not give up.

"50,000 people and more," says Lukashenko, are on the square. It is a gross exaggeration. The attempt to make an invisible majority of Lukashenko visible this Sunday has failed. Instead, a huge crowd gathers at the "stele", a war memorial further north. The atmosphere here is different: more of a love parade than angry protest, with imaginative hand-painted signs and funny white-red-white clothes - but without a stage, speeches, leaders, structure. A cheerful get-together, accompanied by the constant honking of the passing cars. Minsk currently sounds like the Belarusian national team is winning the World Cup every day.

Lukashenko's opponents are louder

Little has been heard of Lukashenko's speech on Independence Square, and there is very little interest in it. Nobody here is surprised that he sees foreign interference everywhere. "He constantly warns that others want to conquer Belarus - Poland, the Czech Republic, the West, whoever. He doesn't see that we Belarusians want to conquer Belarus," says the 27-year-old programmer Vitaly. 

Lukashenko's supporters, who were on Independence Square at noon, went home quietly after the rally. Lukashenko's opponents are louder and they don't get lost that quickly. In the evening, the crowd at the stele streams back into the center, to Independence Square, on many routes. The same room in which the president wanted to show his support at noon fills up after six o'clock with a sea of ​​white, red and white flags, even the broad independence prospectus is full of people. “Go away!” They shout right where the President wanted to show that he is in charge. Police are nowhere to be seen.

"It is a serious, a very serious time," Lukashenko had told his supporters at noon. How serious, he will perhaps only fully understand that in the evening, when looking at the sea of ​​people on Independence Square.