On the 11th September Belarus’ citizens elected their new Parliament. For the first time in almost twenty years, since 2000, an opposition party member has been elected. Anna Konopatskaya is a member of the opposition United Civic Party and was head of its organization in Minsk. However, her election caused some controversy in opposition circles, as according to official results the relatively unknown politician beat the popular opposition politician Tatyana Karatkevich, who, as a presidential candidate in 2010 had gained the most opposition votes, coming in second, after President Lukashenko. Some pro-opposition observers and media decried the unlikely result, claiming the authorities ‘allowed’ Konopatskaya into the parliament to kill two birds with one stone: show off an opposition MP for the western observers, while not allowing a more popular politician the bigger platform of an MP seat.
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