Smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko Election campaign posters were removed from Belarus on Sunday when the country held a organized election that was practically guaranteed. 70 -year -old dictator Another period in their three decades of power.
“Need!” The posters have been announced under the picture of Lukashenko, with their hands tied. The phrase is that voter groups responded to election videos when it was speculated that they wanted to serve again.
But his opponents, many of whom, against their dissatisfaction and their relentless crackdowns against freedom of expression, are imprisoned or deported abroad due to their relentless crackdown. They call the elections a fraud – just like the last elections in 2020, which gave rise to months of demonstrations, which were unprecedented in the country’s history of 9 million people.
More than 65,000 arrests were made in the crackdown, thousands were beaten. Condemnation and restrictions From the west.
Since 1994, his hands -on rule – Lukashenko took office two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union – relying on subsidies and political support of the close ally Russia, he got the title of “Europe’s last dictator”.
It allowed Moscow to use its territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosted some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, but still campaigned with slogans, “peace and security,” Argue that he had saved Belarus from pulling towards war.
“Having dictatorship like Belarus is better than a democracy like Ukraine,” Lukashenko said in a two -way way.
Fears of a re -election of election unrest
His dependence on the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin – who himself is in the position of a quarter century – helped him avoid the 2020 protests.
Observers believe that Lukashenko feared the again of these major demonstrations, while during economic problems and fighting in Ukraine, and so on Schedule voting in JanuaryWhen a few people want to fill the streets again instead of August. It only faces opposition token.
Belarusi political analyst Valerie Karbilich said the shock of the 2020 protest was so deep that this time Lukashenko decided not to take the risk and chose the most reliable option when a voting elections to maintain more power than the elections. Looks like a special operation.
Lukashenko repeatedly announced that he was not in power and “will quietly and calmly hand him over to a new generation.”
His 20 -year -old son, Nicolai, traveled to the country, interviewed, signed autographs and played the piano in campaign programs. His father did not mention his health, though he had difficulty walking and occasionally spoke in a loud voice.
“Lukashenko actively campaigned despite health problems, and that means he still has a lot of energy,” Karbelich said. “The success of the successor becomes relevant only when a leader prepares to quit. But Lukashenko is not going to leave.
High political opponents were imprisoned or deported.
The leading opponents have fled abroad or have been jailed. There are about 1,300 political prisoners in the country, including the Nobel Peace Prize. Alice BeyatskyThe founder of the Vyasana Human Rights Center.
Since July, Lukashenko has forgiven more than 250 people, who have been declared a political prisoner by workers. However, at the same time, authorities arrest hundreds in raids targeting every person who participated in online activities organized by political prisoners’ relatives and friends and apartment blocks in different cities. Have tried to get rid of it.
Vyasana said the authorities had detained 188 people alone last month. Rights supporters said the police and the opposition groups were summoned by the police and forced them to sign the papers that they had been warned against participation in unapproved demonstrations.
On the belt, the four challengers of Lukashenko are loyal to them and appreciate their rule.
“I’m not against it, but I am in the race with Lukashenko, and I am ready to work as their seal,” said Sergei Sarankov. Said, who supports the LGBTQ+ activities as criminal and rebuild the monuments of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The head of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice, Alexander Treasury, led a voting constituency in Minsk in 2020 and expressed his commitment that he was ready to stop the “repeated”.
The head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Olegg Gedovich, supported Lukashenko in 2020 and urged fellow candidates to “nominate Lukashenko’s enemies.”
The fourth challenge, Hannah Kantaskaya, actually got 1.7 percent of the vote in 2020 and says he is the “only democratic alternative to Lukashenko”, which promises to lobby for the release of political prisoners, but supporters ” More action “warns.
Opposition Leader called the elections a ‘stupid sarcastic’
After challenging the president in 2020, the opposition leader, who escaped from Belarus under government pressure, told the Associated Press that Sunday’s election was a “unconscious joke, Lukashenko ritual”.
He said that voters should cross the belt everyone, and world leaders should not recognize the result of a country where all independent media and opposition parties have been destroyed and prisons are full of political prisoners. “
He said that repression has become even more cruel because the vote has come to a close without any election, but Lukashenko is doing something like millions of people are still standing outside his palace.
The European Parliament called on the European Union on Wednesday to reject the election results.
Reporters Without Borders, which monitors media freedom, filed a complaint against Lukashenko in a crackdown against its freedom of expression in which 397 journalists have been arrested since 2020. It states that 43 are in jail.
Fears of fraud in votes
According to the Central Election Commission, there are 6.8 million eligible voters. However, about 500,000 people have left Belarus and are unable to vote.
At home, the preliminary voting that began on Tuesday has made the fertile field for irregularities, as the ballot boxes will not be protected until the last day of the election, the opposition said. More than 27 % of voters voted in three days of the preliminary voting, officials said.
Polling stations have removed curtains covering ballot boxes, and voters are forbidden to photograph their belts – responding to the opposition’s demand for voters taking such photos in 2020 so that the authorities vote in voting. It will be more difficult to rig.
Police have conducted widespread exercises before the election. A video from the Interior Ministry shows that the helmet police are beating their shields with poles to disperse the protests. Another arrested an officer as a voter, rotating his arm with the ballot box.
Belarus initially refused to allow observers of the Security and Cooperation Organization in Europe, who monitored the previous elections. It changed this month and invited the OSCE – while it was too late to organize the monitoring mission.
Rising dependent on Russia
Lukashenko’s support for the war in Ukraine has led to Belarus’s cutting off relations with the United States and the European Union, which has eliminated its game manshop to use the West to get more subsidies from the Kremlin.
“By 2020, Lukashenko could have made Russia a tactic against the West and could play, but now that Belarus is close to Russia’s satellite, this North Korean -style election has made the Belarus leader even stronger than the Kremlin. Caught, cut off the strip, “said. Artyom Shraybman, Carnegie with Russia and Eurasia Center.
He predicted that after the elections, Lukashenko could try to reach the West again and could try to reduce its full dependence on Russia.
“The interim purpose of Lukashenko is to use the elections to confirm its legal status and try to overcome their isolation so that talks with the West about the minimum restrictions on sanctions,” said Shibarman. Can be done. “
