The recent presidential election in Belarus triggered widespread protests across the Eastern European country – but why?

While officials claimed Alexander Lukashenko won 80% of the vote, the result was rejected by the opposition.

So will the former Soviet collective farm manager, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, remain in power for a sixth term – or will those who seek to remove him go on to claim the ultimate victory? And what more do we know about the woman trying to unite the country, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya?

On the Sky News Daily podcast we hear the stories of two women who have risked their freedom to be on the frontline of the demonstrations while our host Dermot Murnaghan talks to Sky’s foreign affairs editor Deborah Haynes about the politics, the history and what next for the people of Belarus.

Daily podcast team:
Podcast producer – Annie Joyce
Podcast producer – Nicola Eyers
Assistant producer - Sabah Choudhry
Interviews producer - Oli Foster
Interviews producer - Tatiana Alderson
Interviews producer – Megan Coutts
Archive – Simon Windsor
Music creative manager – Steven Wheeler