Belarus backs Shashi Tharoor

Indian candidate Shashi Tharoor bags the first European endorsement of this race in Belarus. However, affairs aren’t so rosy for Shashi. Belarus, a noted human rights abuser, conveyed its endorsement of Mr Tharoor to the Indian Industry Minister Kumar. On the bright side, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko is very close to the government of Russia. On the dim side, a good part of the world is quite aware of Belarus human rights violations – on the European level, it may be the only thing the Socialists, Liberals, and Centre-Right agree upon – all transnational parties condemn Mr Lukashenko and support the opposition (which is essentially an all-ideology pro-democracy coalition). Shashi will have to explain why he is associating with pariahs in Europe. On another level, this blog finds this development interesting – currently, all the announced candidates who have endorsements from non-home candidates have countries supporting them which have serious human rights problems (Ban has Uzbekistan, North Korea, and Egypt, while Shashi has Belarus). This is a sad development for those of us who believe that human rights is a significant topic for the United Nations.