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Al Jazeera: Who is the woman challenging Belarusian President Lukashenko?

Published Aug. 8, 2020 at 5:48 am

Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (C) participates in a campaign rally near the city of Maladzechna, some 70 kilometres northwest of Minsk on July 31, 2020. She is joined by Veronika Tsepkalo (L), the wife Valery Tsepkalo who was bared from running for presidency and Maria Kolesnikova (R), campaign chief of Viktor Babariko who was imprisoned prior to the elections on dubious tax evasion charges.

Photo by AFP

On July 14, Belarus’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced the list of candidates registered for the upcoming presidential elections. Among those who made it, along with incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, was Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former English teacher and a housewife with no prior political experience.