Belarus President Set To Extend Decades Rule Amid Criticism

Belarusians are voting in a closely managed presidential election that is all but certain to extend the rule of Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and Europe’s longest-serving leader.

The last time Belarus held a presidential election in 2020, Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory with more than 80% of the vote. The opposition cried foul, claiming that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was the rightful winner. Hundreds of thousands protested in the capital, Minsk, sparking the harshest crackdown in the country’s post-Soviet history.

This year, with voting underway, Tsikhanouskaya is not asking Belarusians to take to the streets again. The costs are too high, she says.

Tsikhanouskaya only ran in 2020 after her husband was jailed and prevented from running. Perhaps underestimating the political novice, Lukashenko allowed Tsikhanouskaya to run against him – an oversight that led to the greatest threat he faced in his decades-long rule.

“He was complacent and completely misjudged the public mood,” Nigel Gould-Davies, the United Kingdom’s former ambassador to Belarus, told CNN. “That’s why he’s taking no chances at all this time.”

Now, Lukashenko is facing only token challengers, one of whom has said he is running “not instead of, but alongside the president.” For the first time, no independent observers will monitor the vote and polling stations abroad will not be open, depriving some 3.5 million citizens outside the country of their vote.

Tsikhanouskaya’s opposition movement has said the “elections” are merely “a meticulously orchestrated charade designed to perpetuate the illegitimate dictator’s grip on power.” The European Parliament and US State Department have also labelled the election a “sham.”

“Repression is born of weakness, not strength. The unprecedented measures to stifle any opposition make it clear that the Lukashenko regime fears its own people,” the State Department said last week.

After casting his ballot Sunday, Lukashenko told journalists he did not care whether the West recognizes Belarus’ election or not.

Although Lukashenko is “more dependent on Russia and on Putin personally than ever before,” there may be limits to this alliance, said Gould-Davies, now a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank.

“Belarus has provided a wide range of valuable services to Russia, but the thing of course that it hasn’t done is send its own forces (to Ukraine),” he said, suggesting he may fear a backlash among his own troops or wider population if he did so.

Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with Viasna, has said many detainees are held in conditions and subjected to treatment that amounts to “torture.”

Lukashenko will be 74 if he completes his seventh term in office. But he has given no indication that he intends to step down. “As long as I have health, I will stay with you,” he said during a visit to a church outside Minsk earlier this month.

CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma