Smash hit

Lukashenko has turned his country into a virtual Soviet-era theme park, where criticising the president can lead to a lengthy jail term. He was barred under the constitution from running for a third term but overcame that hurdle in 2004 by holding a referendum, widely believed to have been rigged as well as being illegal, to change the rules. Small crowds of opponents who took to the streets were brutally dispersed by club-wielding police.

Surrounded by a handful of aides taking turns to work on the only two laptops available, Milinkevich conceded that trying to unseat Lukashenko by democratic means was both dangerous and all but impossible. Most of the president’s political rivals have either been jailed or have vanished and are feared dead.

Minsk, a city of large avenues kept spotless by an army of street cleaners, is one of the most heavily policed places in the world.

The president’s secret police, who have retained their Soviet-era acronym of KGB, are extremely powerful. Critics of the regime are followed and their telephones tapped. Handing out leaflets in support of the opposition is enough to warrant arrest.

“I understand perfectly well that something could happen to me,” said Milinkevich. “I could get arrested or something worse could happen, but we can’t go on living in fear. We have to confront it. The more we are, the bigger the chances of success.”

All television and radio stations are state-owned, as is more than 80% of the economy. While even Lukashenko’s most trivial pronouncements are reported on the evening news bulletins, Milinkevich will be allowed to air his views in only two 30-minute television slots after campaigning starts later this month.

As a result many voters, even in Minsk, have never heard of him and are barely aware of the opposition. An independent poll last month nevertheless put his share of the vote at 24% and rising fast, against 54% for Lukashenko. In the capital he was said to be leading the president by 41% to 38%. Under the constitution, the election will go to a second round if nobody wins at least half the votes in the first.

Two other candidates are running. Sergei Gaidukevich, a close ally of Lukashenko, is said by opponents to have been asked to put his name forward to give the vote a semblance of legitimacy. The fourth, Alexander Kozulin, is the former rector of the state university.

In a sign of his apparent concern at the growing popularity of Milinkevich, Lukashenko had ordered the elections to be brought forward by four months. He also had a law passed allowing him to order the police to shoot at demonstrators.

European leaders have warned that if the elections are not free and fair sanctions will be imposed on Belarus, which was described by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, as one of six “outposts of tyranny” — alongside Iran, North Korea, Burma, Cuba and Zimbabwe.

Lukashenko has warned foreign diplomats against trying to interfere. “The embassies should know that they can be out of here at 24 hours’ notice and no one will help them,” he said recently.

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