It's just that Lukashenka built himself an army of strongmen that have nothing to loose and a servile command state. Then, expectedly, he aged and his physical and mental health deteriorated to the point that
1. Lukashenka made enemies with Russia and Putin personally.
2. Over the last few months, he managed to loose all the remaining support base he had.
3. On August, 3 he acknowledged personally ordering killings.
Here are some of the nastier facts about him:
1. He isolated his first wife, the mother if his two kids and his sex toy, the mother of his third kid. They could not leave their houses for years.
2. Aged 65, he sleeps with young girls and brags about it.
It's no surprise that any united opposition candidate would win the election.
But Belarusians had a lucky chance to have the best ever candidate.
The world completely missed out a wonderful election campaign in Belarus by three beautiful ladies that took on the leadership after their men were jailed or ran away. They were calling themselves Love, Might, Win. The lead opposition candidate, the Might of the trio emerged as the nation leader literally in a matter of weeks. Her speeches were simple, peaceful and straight to the point. She did not call people into streets. Still, every night, over 100,000 people confront the police and the army for her.
Some died.
I highly doubt it. You don't instigate protests and congratulate "winner" on the next day after election at the same time. It's far easier to pressure known leader, who has bad relations with the West (and elections only made them worse), than risk instability and weak government puppeteered by foreign forces installed after a "revolution" (see Ukraine).
I previously wrote about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24104304
It's hilarious that people think the US controls every aspect of planet Earth, such that it can just point its finger at things and make them the way it wants them to be. The bipolar response to US capabilities is the amusing part, the US is either a god toppling governments at will or entirely incompetent, depending on whatever narrative the anti-US contingent needs to push.
Meanwhile Derkach tapes have shown that Ukraine wasn't far from a puppet state and for current government just a little warning from US was enough to stop any investigations into potential Poroshenko treason just because it may influence US elections. Just think about it! Also US has a significant influence over WMF, which openly dictates how Ukraine should behave in certain key areas.
Person in power was not popular and quite stupid - redirecting so much wealth in own pockets and own region, fooling on hot EU and language topics, imprisoning political opponent. The feature was gloom, he had to leave. If someone helped that's fine for me. What was not fine is seizure of land by neighbor.
All the best for Belarus, hope it would not be invaded.