Belarus strongman set to win seventh time period in election opposition calls a farce

The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from marketing campaign posters throughout Belarus on Sunday because the nation held an orchestrated election just about assured to present the 70-year-old autocrat one more time period on prime of his three a long time in energy.

“Wanted!” the posters proclaim beneath a photograph of Lukashenko, his fingers clasped collectively. The phrase is what teams of voters responded in marketing campaign movies after supposedly being requested in the event that they needed him to serve once more.

And in accordance with a nighttime assertion by the Central Election Fee, the strongman chief received by a landslide, garnering practically 87% p.c of the vote.

However his opponents, lots of whom are imprisoned or exiled overseas by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, would disagree. They name the election a sham — very similar to the final one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that had been unprecedented within the historical past of the nation of 9 million folks.

The crackdown noticed greater than 65,000 arrests, with hundreds overwhelmed, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.

His iron-fisted rule since 1994 — Lukashenko took workplace two years after the demise of the Soviet Union — earned him the nickname of “Europe’s Final Dictator,” counting on subsidies and political assist from shut ally Russia.

He let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosts a few of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, however he nonetheless campaigned with the slogan “Peace and safety,” arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into struggle.

“It’s higher to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,” Lukashenko stated in his attribute bluntness.

His reliance on assist from Russian President Vladimir Putin — himself in workplace for a quarter-century — helped him survive the 2020 protests.

Observers consider Lukashenko feared a repeat of these mass demonstrations amid financial troubles and the preventing in Ukraine, and so scheduled the vote in January, when few would wish to fill the streets once more, relatively than in August. He faces solely token opposition.

In response to official outcomes, introduced within the early hours of Monday, Lukashenko received 86.82% of the vote – in comparison with his nearest rival’s 3.21%. In response to the Central Election Fee, 3.60% of voters spoilt their ballots.

In 2020, the electoral physique claimed Lukashenko had taken 80.10% of the vote.

“The trauma of the 2020 protests was so deep that Lukashenko this time determined to not take dangers and opted for essentially the most dependable choice when balloting seems extra like a particular operation to retain energy than an election,” Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich stated.

Lukashenko repeatedly declared that he wasn’t clinging to energy and would “quietly and calmly hand it over to the brand new era.”

His 20-year-old son, Nikolai, traveled the nation, giving interviews, signing autographs and taking part in piano at marketing campaign occasions. His father hasn’t talked about his personal well being, despite the fact that he was seen having problem strolling and sometimes spoke in a hoarse voice.

“The successor challenge solely turns into related when a pacesetter prepares to step down. However Lukashenko isn’t going to depart,” Karbalevich stated.

Main opponents have fled overseas or had been thrown in jail. The nation holds practically 1,300 political prisoners, together with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founding father of the Viasna Human Rights Middle.

Since July, Lukashenko has pardoned greater than 250 folks. On the similar time, authorities have sought to uproot dissent by arresting a whole bunch extra in raids focusing on family members and associates of political prisoners.

Authorities detained 188 folks final month alone, Viasna stated. Activists and people who donated cash to opposition teams have been summoned by police and compelled to signal papers saying they had been warned towards taking part in unsanctioned demonstrations, rights advocates stated.

Lukashenko’s 4 challengers on the poll are all loyal to him.

“I’m coming into the race not towards, however along with Lukashenko, and I’m able to function his vanguard,” stated Communist Social gathering candidate Sergei Syrankov, who got here in second place. He favors criminalizing LGBTQ+ actions and rebuilding monuments to Soviet chief Josef Stalin.

Candidate Alexander Khizhnyak, head of the Republican Social gathering of Labor and Justice, led a voting precinct in Minsk in 2020 and vowed to stop a “repeat of disturbances.”

Oleg Gaidukevich, head of the Liberal Democratic Social gathering, supported Lukashenko in 2020 and urged fellow candidates to “make Lukashenko’s enemies nauseous.”

The fourth challenger, Hanna Kanapatskaya, managed 1.7% of the vote in 2020 and says she’s the “solely democratic various to Lukashenko,” promising to foyer for liberating political prisoners however warning supporters towards “extreme initiative.”

Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus beneath authorities strain after difficult the president in 2020, instructed The Related Press that Sunday’s election was “a mindless farce, a Lukashenko ritual.”

Voters ought to cross off everybody on the poll, she stated, and world leaders should not acknowledge the end result from a rustic “the place all unbiased media and opposition events have been destroyed and prisons are stuffed by political prisoners.”

“The repressions have turn out to be much more brutal as this vote with out selection has approached, however Lukashenko acts as if a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals are nonetheless standing outdoors his palace,” she stated.

The European Union rejected the election in Belarus on Sunday as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions.

“At present’s sham election in Belarus has been neither free, nor honest,” EU overseas coverage chief Kaja Kallas and EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos stated in a joint assertion.

Shortly after voting in Minsk on Sunday, accompanied by his white Pomeranian canine, Lukashenko instructed journalists that he didn’t search recognition or approval from the EU.

“The primary factor for me is that Belarusians acknowledge these elections and that they finish peacefully, as they started,” he stated.

Talking at an hourslong information convention, Lukashenko stated that he did not rule out working for the highest job once more in 2030.

Media freedom watchdog Reporters With out Borders filed a criticism towards Lukashenko with the Worldwide Prison Court docket over his crackdown on free speech that noticed 397 journalists arrested since 2020. It stated that 43 are in jail.

In response to the Central Election Fee, there are 6.8 million eligible voters. Nonetheless, about 500,000 folks have left Belarus and are not in a position to vote.

After polls closed at 8 p.m. native time (1700 GMT), the fee stated that turnout stood at a file 85.70%, however a dearth of unbiased monitoring made that determine near-impossible to confirm.

At dwelling, early voting that started Tuesday has created fertile floor for irregularities with poll bins unguarded till election day, the opposition stated. A file 41.81% of voters forged ballots in 5 days of early voting. In the meantime, Viasna activists reported web points throughout the nation, and alleged Lukashenko’s authorities was blocking entry to VPN companies generally used to evade censorship.

Polling stations have eliminated the curtains masking poll bins, and voters are forbidden from photographing their ballots — a response to the opposition’s name in 2020 for voters to take photos to make it tougher for authorities to rig the vote.

Police carried out large-scale drills earlier than the election. An Inside Ministry video confirmed helmeted riot police beating their shields with truncheons as a strategy to put together for protest dispersals. One other featured an officer arresting a person posing as a voter, twisting his arm subsequent to a poll field.

Lukashenko’s assist for the struggle in Ukraine has led to the rupture of Belarus’ ties with the U.S. and the EU, ending his gamesmanship of utilizing the West to attempt to win extra subsidies from the Kremlin.

He spoke of Russian nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus as a assure of peace, and stated he would choose Moscow as his first official go to if he is reelected.

“Till 2020, Lukashenko might maneuver and play Russia towards the West, however now when Belarus’ standing is near that of Russia’s satellite tv for pc, this North Korea-style election ties the Belarusian chief to the Kremlin even stronger, shortening the leash,” stated Artyom Shraybman, a Belarus skilled with the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Middle.

After the election, Lukashenko might attempt to ease his complete dependence on Russia by once more searching for to achieve out to the West, he predicted.