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The exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition is advising people in the Eastern European nation not to protest against elections in January, saying the vote is a ritual designed to give false legitimacy to President Alexander Lukashenko. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020 and later went into exile, said in an interview that she feared a crackdown and intensification of the country's "brutal repression" if people went out into the streets.