MINSK, 9 February (BelTA) – The West is fomenting tension in Belarus in the build-up to the constitutional referendum, Professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University, political scientist Andrei Manoilo told the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA informs.
“The West is rocking the boat in Belarus in the run-up to the referendum, primarily in order to declare later that the referendum is illegitimate, that it was held under pressure from the security forces and the leadership of Belarus, that people were forced to participate, that they went to polling stations because they were intimidated. Preparatory measures are needed to be able to make such statements against Belarus and the country's leadership. Preparatory measures include a smear campaign in the media, with hoaxes and fake news. Regardless of how the referendum will be held - transparently or not transparently, without violations or with violations - the West will still call it illegitimate, and will not recognize it,” Andrei Manoilo said.
According to him, this is a common tactic of the information war that the West wages against those heads of state and political regimes that it does not like. “As part of these campaigns and operations, the special services of the leading Western countries use the well-known technologies of preventive de-legitimization of elections that were used in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. In autumn 2021 the same technologies were used during Russia's parliamentary elections. At the same time, all these technologies are based on certain templates, universal techniques, and the same schemes,” the political scientist stated.
