Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was on his way to extending his 31 -year -old government with a massive victory in a presidential election on Sunday that Western governments rejected as a scam.
A ballroom research broadcast on state TV projected that it would take almost 88% of the votes. The ally close to Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously defended the arrest of opponents and stated: “I do not give a damn about the West.”
European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media is prohibited in the former Soviet state and all the main opposition figures were sent to criminal or forced colonies to flee abroad.
“The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for everyone who yearn for freedom and democracy, ”posted the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at X.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski expressed a pretended surprise that “only” 87.6% of the electorate seemed to have supported Lukashenko.
“Will the rest fit within the arrests?” He wrote in X.
Asked about the arrest of his opponents, Lukashenko said they “chose” their destination.
“Some chose the prison, some chose ‘exile’, as you say. We didn’t expel anyone from the country, ”he said at a press conference that he lasted more than four hours and 20 minutes.
He said no one was prevented from talking in Belarus, but the arrest was “for people who opened a lot of mouth, to be frank, those who violated the law.”
Authorities said the participation was 85.7% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were able to vote.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhaouskaya told Reuters this week that Lukashenko was planning her reelection as part of a “ritual for dictators.” Manifestations against him occurred on Sunday in Warsaw and other cities in Eastern Europe.
Lukashenko ignored criticism as meaningless and said he didn’t care if the West recognized the election.
Putin ally
The EU and the US said they did not recognize him as a legitimate leader of Belarus after he used his security forces to repress mass protests after the last election in 2020, when Western governments supported Tsikhaouskaya’s allegation that he had fraudumed to count and deceived your victory.
Tens of thousands of people were arrested in protests against the official result of that year, which gave him just over 80% of the votes. The Viassna Human Rights Group, banned as an “extremist” organization, says there are still about 1,250 political prisoners.
Lukashenko released more than 250 last year for what he called humanitarian motives, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Belarus had “just unilaterally released an innocent American,” whom he appointed as Anastassia Nuhfer to unilaterally. .
He gave no more details about the case, which had not been previously made public.
Lukashenko, who did not refer to the liberation of the American, denied that his perdons of people convicted of “extremist” activity were an attempt to repair relations with the West.
He said Belarus was willing to talk to the European Union, but not “bending before you or crawling on his knees.”
Lukashenko faced no serious challenge from the other four candidates in the ballot.
Although the result has never been doubtful, he faces difficult choices in his upcoming term while sailing in relations with Russia and the West – the constant theme of his long government – in the context of possible negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The war united him more strongly than Putin, with Lukashenko offering his country as a launching platform for the 2022 invasion and later agreeing to let Moscow put tactical nuclear weapons at Belarus.
If the conflict is over, political analysts say he will probably try to restore his legitimacy with the West to relieve his isolation and seek sanction.
Lukashenko said he saw “light at the end of the tunnel” while Moscow and Kiev prepare for possible conversations in which he said they would have to reach an agreement. He said he did not regret.
