Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power

The Coordination Council, originally the Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power, is the representative body of the Belarusian democratic forces. It was formed in Minsk in August 2020, during the protests that followed the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election, on the initiative of presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who had been forced to leave Belarus for Lithuania on 11 August. Tsikhanouskaya herself has never been a member of the Council; its initial membership was assembled in Minsk by her representative Volha Kavalkova and lawyer Maxim Znak, and the Council was led by a seven-member presidium elected on 19 August 2020. Within a month, six of the seven presidium members had been detained, forced into exile or expelled from the country, and the Council's executive secretary and press secretary were forcibly taken across the Ukrainian border.