Opposition leaders in Belarus to create new political party amid protests

Belarus opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova and the team of jailed opposition figure Viktor Babariko said on Monday they were forming a new political party called Together, a video shared online showed.

“The country is in a political and socio-economic crisis, and together we know, how to exit this crisis … Very soon we will hand in the paperwork needed for registration,” Kolesnikova said in the video.

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Babariko, a banker who was detained last month and excluded from the Aug. 9 election ballot, said in a video recorded before his arrest that one of the party’s goals would be constitutional reform.

Protests in Belarus, triggered by a disputed election result that handed President Alexander Lukashenko another term in power, are in their fourth week. The president, in office for 26 years, has shown no inclination to step down.

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Another opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has fled to Lithuania for security reasons with her children.