Analysis of the democratic protest movement in Belarus from the moment of preparation for the presidential election in 2020 until the end of 2021: strategies, mistakes, and reasons of defeat.
Almost two years after the beginning of the most significant protests in the history of modern Belarus, the protest movement has come to a complete halt. Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya, Franak Vyachorka and their umbrella organization called Office of Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya (hereinafter OST), despite having received a mandate of trust from Belarusian society, as well as a strong, although somewhat one-sided support from the international community, have not been able to find ways out of the crisis, nor to increase internal and external pressure on the regime to the point when it would be forced to make concessions. The same is, however, true also for other protest groups and organizations affiliated with, or opposed to, the OST. There are several reasons for this, some of which are fairly obvious at the moment and can already be named in the introductory part of the analysis.
Others are still deep beneath the surface of public consciousness, not thematized or elaborated upon. Their discovery, description, and deconstruction is the main goal of this analysis, to which the major part of the text will be dedicated.
In order to achieve this, a thorough strategic analysis of all the main components of the post-2020 protest, including leaderships, formation principles, political plans, interactions, resources and success rates, needs to be undertaken.
After that, based on the results, another important topic will be discussed – the current situation of the protest movement, including the main organizations, their resources and leaders and assess, as well as their prospects. Full text is available only to partners of the think tank.