To be fair I've seen a lot about this via the BBC <insert whichever common opinion about the BBC applies to you[1]>, which I presume isn't too far off the entirety of news available.
Self-presumed President-For-Life 'wins' what is supposed to be token elections; a small fishing-fleet's-worth of 'funny smell about this' is declared by the Opposition he had magmanimously allowed to exist; poll observers are known to have gone missing; Opposition leader is 'invited' to officially concede but isn't as convincing as he normally expects; she flees/is strongarmed out of the country as people taking stock of how much groundswell support there is come to a solid conclusion that this may not be a Representative Democracy; protests (and relatively tiny counter-protests) confirm this; minority (government) support still includes almost all law-enforcement (plus military and 'secret' police) so act heavy-handed; modern news-cycles (and off-broadcaster information channels) pick up this information; unlike prior times, the threat of 'enforcement' fans the flames rather than douses them; strikes at tractor plants (obviously! It's always tractor plants in that part of the world); calls opponents 'Nazis', for the same reason other Presidents call people 'Communists' (i.e. no ideologically correct reason, just that that's what you call anyone that isn't 'Us', even if they aren't actually anything like 'Them'); President also declares war-like conditions, donning fatigues, holding weapons due to "foreign interventions" from neighbouring NATO, 'massing forces' on his borders; meanwhile, may have sent attack helicopters over the same borders to shoot down protest-coloured balloons; In leiu of arresting the Opposition-Leader-In-Exile, arrests/detains various notable equivalent figures still on home turf, including Nobel Prize winner; Almost certainly, already has tangible Russian resources at his disposal (being an important allied buffer-state to Moscow); No sign of this stopping the protests, and now we await either violent crackdown or some violent escalation from their side, especially if select elements of the security forces switch alliegance; Any such switch ismost likely in the army, than the ideologically tighter agencies, so that is probably being held out of things and fed purs Party Line by Political Officers and sheer logistics isolating them from groundswell feeling; This tension of truth and 'Truth' will result, if ever called on to act against protestors, either as worse putting-down or a more sudden snap across the divide.
So, where is it going to go? I can't see an obvious exit strategy that would work for all parties, or even guaranteed to make some parties the parties that emerge unscathed at the end. I don't think it'll be quite like Syria, but not like (say) Morocco, either. If it drags beyond Nov 3rd then what happens in the US may (by a tenuous chain of not necessarily straight-forward reactions) set a new course, and <mumble mumble mumble> Covid could send various skittles flying at strange angles, too.
I have the luxury to 'only' have problems like the PM declaring safety-first considerations to be immoral, having no apparent intention to work out post-divorce scenarios with a major teading block and having only strong opinions about whether the BBC (in the matrix of opinions, not his favourite organisation) should have people sing some century-and-a-bit-old words or not (as apparently the most important thing to he discussed, right now).
If you're neighbouring this mess (part of "NATO's massing forces", no doubt, straining at the leash, eh?) then it probably is a bit more immediate, and you have my due concern. Anywhere near that Human Chain organised in sympathy, maybe?
I didn't intend to go into all that, just now, but I got a bit carried away in trying to Summarise (the more memorable reports, missed a few/forgot a few, no doubt) and Theorise, and probably could have done a better job in the Sympathise part too... Or so I now Realise.
[1] Far too tied to the Establishment | Far too committed to bringing down the Establishment | Lefty Pinko Commies, every man-jack of 'em | Too much Old School Tie disdain for the average Working Man | etc | etc...
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Topic: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included) (Read 273428 times)