Belarus’s strong-arm leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, is up for re-election
Europe’s longest-serving leader, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, won his seventh straight election on Sunday in a contest his exiled opponents considered a a sham, with the sole purpose of consolidating his autocratic rule over the former Soviet Union. Republic, Russia’s closest ally.
“Don’t use the word election to describe this farce,” said Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an opposition leader. fled Belarus after the country’s previous presidential election in 2020 and one brutal repression about nationwide protests over election fraud. “It was an orchestrated performance by Lukashenko to cling to power at any cost.”
A survey number of voters leaving to vote Placements published by state media on Sunday night showed Mr. Lukashenko received 87.6% of the vote, more than the 81% he claimed to have won in 2020. Opinion polls are state-controlled like all aspects of elections in Belarus and usually reflect the final results.
Unlike 2020, when Ms. Tikhanovskaya was allowed to run against Mr. Lukashenko and declared herself the winner, Sunday’s election was a tightly controlled and tame one, with only the candidates member loyal to the president. Do not have expressed a real desire to defeat Mr. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994.
Four rival candidates, according to the poll, each won less than 2% of the vote, except for Communist Party leader Sergei Syrankov, who won 2.7%.
With all of Mr. Lukashenko’s prominent opponents in prison or exile and Belarus’s media cheering for the incumbent, the result was a foregone conclusion. But it’s something that still matters to the president, who is eager to show his country — and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — that the chaos of 2020 has been tamed.
In a statement on Sunday, The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, described the election as a “sham” and “neither free nor fair.”
But foreign election observers, including far-right political parties such as Alternative for Germany and other pro-Russian groups, hailed the vote as a victory for democracy and denounced gay criticism. harsh on the elections of the European Parliament and other organizations. “They said that Krastyo Vrachev, an observer representing a fringe nationalist party from Bulgaria, told the Belarusian state news agency. He added: “People are calm and communicate freely, in Europe this does not happen at all.”
The election was certainly so peaceful that Mr. Lukashenko hardly bothered to campaign, saying he was too busy to participate in debates with the four rival candidates chosen by the state or to organize events. election campaign. However, in a nod to conventional politics, last week he signed a decree increasing pensions by 10% starting February 1.
ONE Recent survey of public opinion in Belarus conducted by Chatham Housea British research group, shows widespread dissatisfaction with the economy being hit hard by the epidemic. economic sanctions imposed on the country for supporting Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Only 11% of respondents were definitely satisfied with the economy, while only 32% said they supported a Russian invasion.
According to the survey, Mr. Lukashenko’s main selling point is his “favorable image” as a “politician trying to prevent Belarus from entering into military conflict following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Russia”.
The Russian military used Belarus as a springboard for its initial failed offensive toward Kyiv in early 2022, but Mr. Lukashenko has resisted pressure from Moscow to commit Belarusian troops to the fight against Ukraine.
After voting on Sunday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, Mr. Lukashenko predicted that “there will be some solution this year” to the conflict, adding that President Trump “is not a idiot, not an idiot” and acknowledged that “you cannot force us,” referring to Belarus and Russia. “This year we will see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said of the fight.
His nominal opponents in Sunday’s vote avoided criticism of Lukashenko, who tolerates no public dissent and considers himself “Europe’s last dictator.” Europe”, onen the derogation was coined in 2005 by then-US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
While happily mocking the West, especially neighboring Poland, and showing loyalty to Moscow, Mr. Lukashenko has in recent months expressed a desire to improve frosty relations with Western capitals. Western by release political prisoners.
The process, aimed at easing Western sanctions, continued on Friday when Mr. Lukashenko pardoned 15 more prisoners, including five jailed for “extremist crimes,” a term common term used to describe criticism of the president. The names of those released have not been made public.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a social media post on Sunday, said they included a U.S. citizen he named Anastasia Nuhfer “who was arrested under JOE BIDEN!” Mr. Rubio said she was “inadvertently released” thanks to President Trump’s leadership.
None of Mr. Lukashenko’s most prominent opponents, including Ms. Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei, have been released. The United States and the European Union have left sanctions in place.
In a sign that the administration is hoping for a more sympathetic hearing from the new Trump administration, Belarusian state media last week cheerfully reported that, after the inauguration in Washington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs There have been positive moves. removed from its website a statement criticism of Sunday’s election was made by outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken’s since-deleted statement denounced the Belarusian election as a farce, saying: “The United States joins many of our European allies in assessing that elections cannot be credible in a an environment where censorship is everywhere and independent media no longer exist.”
