Street Rallies Begin in Belarus

The polls are closed, and "results" are starting to come in. The head of the countrys election commision announced that 92.2% the voters in the nation's hospitals and military units (1.2% of the population) voted for Lukashenko, and said that the total results are not expected to be much different.

Meanwhile, thousands of Mimlinkevich supporters have gathered in the the main square of the capital, Minsk. The number of protestors in Oktyabrskaya Square is not certain. The two estimates I have seen are vastly different and both come from sources that could be biased. A photo caption by the Associated Free Press, working in collaboration with the Belarussian state-run media, set the number at 6,000. On the other hand, Radio Free Europe set the number between 20,000 and 30,000. I'm not there, so I can't judge the number for myself. I know that the AFP number is at least an hour old, and the protest is growing. I don't know when the Radio Free Europe article was written, but I'm guessing that it maight be a little more recent.

Either way, there are lots of people taking to the streets in Minsk. Lukliy, neither the police or the KGB have tried to break up the protests.

Stay tuned...

Tags: Belarus, Milinkevich, Revolutions, Democracy, Denim Revolution, KGB, Lukashenko, Kozulin