Belarusians assemble en masse in Minsk as an extraordinary week of rising sentiment comes to a close. ‘I made my choice and my vote was thrown in the bin, so I’ll keep coming out until our president leaves,’ said one demonstrator. Seven days after the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed to have secured 80% of the vote in a presidential election, his legitimacy is in tatters and his regime faces its biggest crisis since he came to power 26 years ago.