It's certainly true that politicians can be unpopular for entirely local reasons. For instance, most politicians in USA, for at least the last decade. They are

It's certainly true that politicians can be unpopular for entirely local reasons. For instance, most politicians in USA, for at least the last decade. They are corrupt and incompetent, so they are unpopular. However, both TFA and other things I've read about Belarus have a very "Euromaidan"/"Kong Tsung-gan" flavor to them. This is the sort of thing CIA does. They publicly claim this is the sort of thing they should do. Why would they be sitting this one out?