Belarus President Hardens Position Ahead of Sunday Protests

(Bloomberg) -- Embattled Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko warned of renewed crackdowns as the nation braces for further protests on Sunday.

“I’ve just said: You have Saturday and Sunday to think. From Monday don’t be sorry,” he said at a rally in the city of Grodno, according to comments published on the presidential website.

Lukashenko has been confronting the biggest protests in his 26 years of rule amid international condemnation of the Aug. 9 presidential election that he claimed to have won by a landslide. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the capital, Minsk, and other cities to demand his resignation, while riot police have beat demonstrators and detained nearly 7,000 amid allegations of torture in custody.

Since last weekend’s mass protests, demonstrations have thinned into smaller actions across the country. From exile in Lithuania, the main opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskya, urged supporters to rally on Sunday.

Lukashenko called for citizens to forgive enforcement authorities. “Even if they made mistakes, forgive them.”

In separate remarks earlier Saturday he said western officials favor military action to remove him.

“NATO troops are coming closer to our borders,” he said earlier on a visit to soldiers in the Grodno region. “They are all moving to bring in a new president.” The region shares a border with North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Lithuania and Poland.

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