Ingo Petz On 9 August, presidential elections will take place in Belarus. These are elections that are not elections. Long-term autocrat Aliaksandr Lukashenka has no intention of giving the opposition a chance: challengers are arrested in advance; protests are banned or broken up; the media are attacked and temporarily disabled; activists are arbitrarily detained. The ritual has been the same for over two decades. This time is no exception. And yet something is also different. On 19 June, thousands of people came together spontaneously in Minsk and other cities to form a ‘chain of solidarity’ with the arrested Viktar Babaryka, the most popular aspiring candidate for the Belarus presidency with over 400,000 signatures. On 14 July, it was announced that