The United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus () is a
government in exile
A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovereign state or semi-sovereign state, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile usu ...
for
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
that was formed in August 2022.
Creation
Following the disputed
2020 Belarusian presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on Sunday, 9 August 2020. Early voting began on 4 August and ran until 8 August.
Incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was announced by the Central Election Commission of Belarus, Central Election Commissi ...
, opposition forces, led by presidential candidate
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya
Sviatlana Hieorhiyeuna Tsikhanouskaya (; born 11 September 1982) is a Belarusian political activist. After standing as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election against the president Alexander Lukashenko, she has led the political opposit ...
formed a
Coordination Council to facilitate a transition to democracy in the country. Tsikhanouskaya and several other members of the council were forced to leave Belarus or were placed under arrest during
protests
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...
that broke out following the election.
The United Transitional Cabinet was formed on 9 August 2022 during a two-day conference in
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
after members of the Belarusian opposition requested Tsikhanouskaya to form "a united interim government".
Aims and guidelines
The stated aims of the United Transitional Cabinet are as follows:
*"Defend the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus, represent the national interests of Belarus."
*"Carry out the de facto de-occupation of Belarus."
*"Restore constitutional legality and the rule of law."
*"Develop and implement measures to thwart the illegal retention of power, ensure the transit of power from dictatorship to democracy, and create conditions for fair and free elections."
*"Develop and implement the solutions needed to secure a democratic change in Belarus."
In August 2024, the Coordination Council, the United Transitional Cabinet, Tsikhanouskaya and her administrative Office published an agreement describing principles and procedures of their respective roles, power relations, and dispute resolution procedures.


Article 4.3 of the agreement defines the powers of the "National Leader" (initially Tsikhanouskaya based on the 2020 presidential election) and of the Coordination Council in relation to appointing and dismissing cabinet members.

 Both the National Leader and the Coordination Council need to give the other 15 days for responses to proposed appointments or dismissals; the National Leader makes the final decision.
Activities
In August 2022, activities of the Cabinet included the preparation of legal documents to define structures, responsibilities,
decision-making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
methods, and selection of staff.
During a meeting with European Parliament President
Roberta Metsola
Roberta Metsola (; ; born 18 January 1979) is a Malta, Maltese politician who has served as the president of the European Parliament since January 2022. She is a member of Malta's Nationalist Party (Malta), Nationalist Party (PN) and the European ...
, Tsikhanouskaya announced plans for the Cabinet to issue
alternative passports for Belarusians in 2024.
The Cabinet issued some awards:
* the ''Cross of Good Neighbourhood'' (, ) - to be awarded to outstanding individuals who significantly help the cause of Belarusians. Recipients include
Roberta Metsola
Roberta Metsola (; ; born 18 January 1979) is a Malta, Maltese politician who has served as the president of the European Parliament since January 2022. She is a member of Malta's Nationalist Party (Malta), Nationalist Party (PN) and the European ...
,
Stefan Eriksson
Bo Stefan M. Eriksson (born December 14, 1961) is a Swedish video game developer and criminal from Uppsala involved in the British gaming company Gizmondo with his business partner Carl Freer, until it became insolvent in 2005. In February 2006 ...
and
ÞórdÃs Gylfadóttir.
* the ''Medal of Honor and Dignity -'' posthumously awarded to families of
Belarusian soldiers fighting for Ukraine.
Reaction
The
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
passed a resolution welcoming the formation of the United Transitional Cabinet on 24 November 2022.
The
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
did not recognise Lukashenko’s claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election in Belarus stating that
"These elections were neither free nor fair. The European Union considers their results falsified and therefore does not recognise the election results announced by the Central Election Commission of Belarus.
Some leaders of the democratic movement in Belarus, including former presidential candidates, have not recognised the United Transitional Cabinet. Their main arguments are that no one elected the cabinet members, and therefore in their opinion the UTC does not represent the people.
One former presidential candidate of 2010,
Andrei Sannikov
Andrei Olegovich Sannikov (or Andrei Sannikau, , , born 8 March 1954) is a Belarusian politician and activist. In the early 1990s, he headed the Belarusian delegation on Nuclear and Conventional Weapons Armament Negotiations, also serving as a Be ...
, called the members of the cabinet "impostors".
Another former presidential candidate for 2020
Valery Tsepkalo
Valery Vilyamovich Tsepkalo or Valery Vilyamavich Tsapkala (; ; born 22 February 1965) is a Belarusian politician and entrepreneur. After graduating from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations with a doctoral degree in internatio ...
stated that both Tsikhanouskaya's office, the Cabinet and the
Coordination Council are "fake structures", "appointed by one person", because the Belarusian people did not participate in choosing the members of these structures and did not authorise them to develop programs. They claim that many members of the cabinet are unknown in Belarus.
On 30 August 2022, the
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
designated the Cabinet as an extremist group. A few months later, the Cabinet's
Telegram
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...
channel was added to the list of extremist materials. The United Transitional Cabinet was designated as a "terrorist organisation" the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office said on July 9 2025.
Members
Membership of the Cabinet is for a term of six months.
The former and current members of the transitional cabinet are as follows:
Cabinet reshuffles
By 2023, the Belarusian
Coordination Council had started taking a role as a proto-parliament. In August 2023 it exercised the principle of
separation of powers
The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
by withdrawing confidence in
Aliaksandr Azarau
Aliaksandr Azarau (, ) is a former police investigator in Belarusian security services including the Investigative Committee of Belarus and GUBOPiK. , he is head of the Belarusian opposition police group BYPOL. Azarau was responsible for law and ...
as Representative for Law and Order. Tsikhanouskaya accepted the Council's decision and Azarau was dismissed from the Cabinet.
See also
*
Belarusian democracy movement
The Belarusian opposition consists of groups and individuals in Belarus seeking to challenge, from 1988 to 1991, the authorities of Soviet Belarus, and since 1995, the leader of the country Alexander Lukashenko (allied with Vladimir Putin), whom ...
*
Coordination Council (Belarus)
The Coordination Council, originally known as the Coordination Council for ensuring the transfer of power (; ) is a non-governmental body created by presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to facilitate a democratic transfer of power ...
*
Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic
The Rada of the Belarusian People's Republic (, ) was the governing body of the Belarusian Democratic Republic. Since 1919, the Rada BNR has been in exile where it has preserved its existence among the Belarusian diaspora as an advocacy group ...
*
Belarusian partisan movement (2020–present)
The Belarusian partisan movement, sometimes called the Belarusian Civil War, is an ongoing campaign of resistance against the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko. It began in response to the violent suppression of the 2020–2021 Bel ...
References
External links
United Transitional Cabineton Twitter
United Transitional Cabineton Telegram
New Belarus ConferencePeople's Embassies of Belarus
{{Belarusian democracy movement
2020–2021 Belarusian protests
Belarusian opposition
Politics of Belarus
2022 in Belarus
Democracy movements
Exile organizations
Governments in exile