Polling stations opened in Belarus on Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. local time (6:00 a.m. CET) for the presidential election. This is the first election of the head of state since the massive protests following the elections five years ago, in which the previous president, Alexander Lukashenko, won by a landslide. The Belarusian opposition called them manipulated, and several countries, including the European Union and the US, refused to recognize Lukashenko’s victory. TASR reports according to AP and DPA agencies.
Unlike the 2020 elections, only symbolic challengers who do not openly criticize the Belarusian leader will stand against Lukashenko on Sunday, according to AP. Most of the relevant opposition politicians are behind bars, in exile or have had their candidacy rejected by the electoral commission.
“Politicians who once dared to challenge Lukashenko are now literally rotting in prison in conditions similar to torture. It has been impossible to establish any contact with them for more than a year, and some of them are in a very bad state of health.” Pavel Sapelka, a representative of the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna, told AP.
Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus for more than 30 years, while observers consider free and fair only the first presidential elections, which took place in the country back in 1994. Lukashenko is the first and so far the only president of the country and is running for the seventh time.
Due to his authoritative style of politics, Lukashenko already earned the nickname “the last dictator of Europe” in his first years in office. Belarus is also the last European country in which the death penalty is applied. For this reason, it never became a member state of the Council of Europe.
According to DPA, Belarus became a close ally of Russia under Lukashenko’s leadership. Minsk is closely linked with Moscow both economically and militarily through of the Union State of Russia and Belarus integration project. Moscow also used Belarusian territory during the attack on Ukraine in February 2022 and has nuclear weapons deployed in the country.
However, AP reminds that Lukashenko tried to maintain himself in the past good relations also with the West. However, these were disrupted after the last presidential election, when election manipulation caused the largest protests in the history of Belarusian independence. Lukashenko’s regime violently suppressed them, with the authorities arresting 65,000 people, including several opposition leaders. Presidential candidate and opposition leader Sviatlana Cichanovská fled the country and still lives in exile in Lithuania. Since then, more than 300,000 people have emigrated from the country.
According to non-governmental organizations, the Belarusian regime currently holds approximately 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Viasna founder Ales Byaljacki.
In addition, this year’s elections are being held well in advance, since Lukashenko’s term of office will expire in the summer. Several experts associate the change of date with an effort to prevent mass demonstrations, which are more difficult to organize in low winter temperatures.
Part of the political opposition in exile has called on Belarusians to boycott the election completely, while other camps say people should choose the option to “vote for nobody” on the ballot. Supporters of the exiled opposition leader Cichanovská, who many consider the real winner of the 2020 elections, they called on the international community not to recognize the election results or Lukashenko as president.
