The Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, 70 years old and a close ally of Russia in its offensive against Ukraine, will continue another five years in power after winning with 87.6% support in the election paripé organized this year. … Sunday in Belarus. This is indicated, according to the Russian agency TASS, an exit poll by the so-called Committee of Youth Organizations of Belarus. This will be his seventh term since 1994, meaning he has been leading the country for more than 30 years.
And always applying an iron fist, especially since August 2020, when he also falsified his re-election and was close to being overthrown by a revolt that he ended up ruthlessly crushing and whose consequences are felt today more intensely than ever.
The opposition, with its main leaders in prison or in exile, has not been able to raise its head since 2020 and the independent press has long been banned. Hence the total absence of guarantees that allow validating the current elections as legitimate, they are a simple fraudulent procedure for Lukashenko to continue occupying the Presidency.
Lukashenko has warned that, unlike 2020, this time there will be no protests. For now, the only demonstrations of rejection took place this Sunday in Warsaw while both the European Union and the United States have called the votes a “farce.”
The European Commission rejects that these elections can be described as democratic. The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallasstressed this Sunday in The leader of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svetlana Tijanóvskaya, has declared that “no one will be able to accept the results” of these elections.
In addition to the current president, four other candidates have attended, “dance partners”, as even the official press calls them, which does not hide the role of troupe that they represent. They are the head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Oleg Gaidukevich, the leader of the communists, Sergei Sirankov, the president of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice, Alexander Jizhniak, and the businesswoman and independent deputy Anna Kanopátskaya, the only woman in the running and the only one who has allowed herself some criticism of the system and that demands the release of the more than a thousand political prisoners in the country’s dungeons.
The Human Rights organization Viasna, banned in the country for being considered “extremist”, estimates that there are about 1,250 political prisoners in Belarus, even after more than 250 have been pardoned in recent months. Many of those released were seriously ill, elderly or near the end of their sentences. However, top opposition leaders, such as Sergei Tikhanovski, Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Valeri Tsepkalo, Ales Bialiatski, María Kolesnikova and Víctor Babariko, remain in prison.
Prison or exile for dissidents
During the press conference he gave after going to cast his vote in the company of his dog, Lukashenko was urged to admit that there is little democratic about elections when the opposition is in jail or abroad. He responded that “they chose freely, some chose prison, others ‘exile’, as you say, although we did not expel anyone from the country.” He also denied that those who spoke about the situation in Belarus were persecuted, stating that “there was jail for people who opened their mouths too much, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law.” He also assured that he cares little “whether or not the West recognizes the result of the elections (…) nothing is going to change here because of that.”
But, to prevent possible protests in the coming days, since Saturday, numerous Internet pages and VPNs have begun to be blocked. There is a threat that, in the event of mobilization attempts, the Internet will be completely inaccessible. There has been practically no electoral campaign. Lukashenko said he would not participate in any electoral debate due to “lack of time” given the numerous state matters that supposedly demand his attention.
To prevent possible protests in the coming days, since Saturday, numerous Internet pages and VPNs have begun to be blocked
He was one of the few deputies who voted against the independence of Belarus in 1991. Until then he had run a ‘Sovjoz’, a communist agrarian cooperative, near the city of Mogilev, next to the border with Russia. After being elected deputy, the former agricultural official was put in charge of an anti-corruption committee, which made him gain popularity.
He won for the first time in a presidential election in 1994 under the flag of union with Russia, with the declared objective of reestablishing something similar to what the USSR was. Upon coming to power, Lukashenko restored the old flag of Soviet Belarus and many other symbols and institutions of the former communist regime, including the reviled KGB.
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