Europe | Miffed in Minsk

Waving slippers at the “cockroach” president of Belarus

Alexander Lukashenko, who touted vodka for covid-19, faces real opposition

The president really bugs them

THEY CAME wielding slippers, with which to squish the man they call “the cockroach”. Alexander Lukashenko, an idiosyncratic autocrat, has retained many of the oppressive structures and symbols of the Soviet Union in Belarus for the past quarter-century. But as the country heads towards a presidential election on August 9th, there are signs that the long-preserved edifice is crumbling.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The slipper revolt”

The new world disorder

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