Ольга Чемоданова в Мьянме. Скриншот видео пресс-службы "Белая русь".
Chairwoman of the pro-Lukashenka party Belaya Rus, Olga Chemodanova, traveled to Myanmar at the head of a Belarusian delegation to observe the third stage of the country’s general elections. During meetings, she wore a red-and-white dress with traditional Belarusian embroidery.
From 2018 to 2021, she headed the press service of Belarus’s Interior Ministry. It was during her tenure that a new pretext for repression emerged — the use of the combination of white and red colors “according to the white-red-white scheme” (the Belarusian national flag of white-red-white horizontal stripes). This was how the alleged “offense” was described in police reports. White-red-white socks, white-red-white stickers on bicycles, vehicles decorated in “opposition” colors, and facades painted white and red were classified as “picketing.”
In 2021, police colonel Chemodanova became head of the Main Directorate for Ideological Work of the Minsk City Executive Committee. She also took over as head of the public association Belarusian Women’s Union. In June, she was elected chairwoman of the official Belarusian party Belaya Rus.
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On Sunday, voting is taking place in Myanmar in the final round of the three-stage general elections, concluding a nearly month-long process that has already secured a parliamentary majority for the country’s military rulers and their allies to form a new government.
Critics say the elections are neither free nor fair and are intended to legitimize military rule after the armed forces ousted the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has already won most of the seats contested in the first two rounds of voting. Twenty-five percent of seats in the upper and lower houses of the national parliament are reserved for the military, guaranteeing it and its allies control of the legislature.
Both supporters and opponents of the party expect General Min Aung Hlaing, who heads the current military government, to assume the presidency after the new parliament convenes.