Lukashenko aspires to another five years in office in an electoral theater without guarantees

Belarusians go to vote this Sunday in an election with hardly any impact outside their borders, not only because of the magnitude of other issues, but also because of the limited alternatives between candidates, among whom one president, Alexander Lukashenko, stands out above all. , whose triumph no one doubts.

This year’s presidential elections still carry the consequences of those of 2020 whose results, even without much of international recognition, ended with a stroke any attempt at internal liberalization and further strengthened ties with Russia and, with it, the dependence on your great neighbor.

Now, after three years being the target of international sanctions for its alleged involvement in the Ukraine war, Lukashenko’s Belarus seeks to reconcile with the West, knowing that the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House can accelerate a possible agreement between kyiv and Moscow.

That is why in the campaign Lukashenko has adopted a less crude tone that he usually uses to refer to his opponents, he has released prisoners detained during the 2020 protests and has even gone so far as to set challenges in his electoral program such as “building bridges” with the opposition, more “dialogue” and less “confrontation.”

However, both the opposition, mainly from abroad – which has already called for a boycott of the electoral process – and Western governments are skeptical of this new meeting, scheduled for summer but brought forward, according to some, due to Lukashenko’s desire to reset his image. abroad as soon as possible and because winter would put a stop to possible mass mobilizations.

Candidates

Lukashenko is one of the five candidates who will finally appear on the ballot this Sunday, after two others withdrew from the race shortly after presenting their credentials, also asking for a vote for the current president due to the “difficult” challenges he had. before him the country.

In addition to Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and to whom polls give him 80 percent of the votes, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Oleg Gaidukevich, also present on the Western sanctions lists, participates; Alexander Jizhniak, of the Labor and Justice Party; and communist leader Sergei Sirankov.

Independent MP Anna Kanopatskaya is the only woman and the only one of the candidates who has defended a reform of the current authoritarian model and the release of imprisoned opponents.

Elections under the worst sanctions in its history

Voters who go to the polls will do so in a very complex sociopolitical context and with a country under a sanctions regime like never before in its history. Before the restrictions already imposed for its alleged support for Vladimir Putin’s Russia during the war, Belarus was already experiencing as many restrictions due to the repression of protests against Lukashenko’s questioned victory in 2020.

Those August 2020 elections led to one of the worst waves of repression by the Belarusian authorities in recent years and led to a crisis never before seen with the West. The sanctions put an end to decades of commercial, cultural and humanitarian relations that had maintained the always difficult balance with what was considered the “last dictatorship in Europe.”

In this context, the crisis deepened even further when the Belarusian Government ordered the forced landing of a plane from the Irish airline Ryanair in Minsk to arrest an opponent, receiving in response more sanctions from the European Union, with whom it shares borders. , to which Lukashenko would have sent hundreds of illegal migrants in retaliation.

International discredit

Throughout the week, voices have been echoing from some capitals questioning the validity of elections in which more than 17 percent of Belarusians have already been able to vote in advance these days – but not those who reside abroad, where ballot boxes have not been enabled for security reasons.

Amid complaints from Human Rights organizations and the disdain of the European Union and the United States, the only one who has wished Lukashenko luck has been his main partner, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

These days the word that has been repeated most in the West to refer to these elections is “farce.” One of the last statements issued by the Joe Biden Administration was precisely to call into question results that were already predicted “long before the votes were cast.”

After Lukashenko criticized the presence of Western observers in the elections for their alleged bias in the process, the Belarusian authorities have finally confirmed the presence of more than 400 attendees from about 40 countries, including the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela .