Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in the Presidential elections which has been claimed a ‘sham’ by the exiled opposition leaders and the West.
Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994 and has won the elections for the seventh time in a row making him Europe’s longest-serving leader.
According to the Central Election Committee, the voter turnout for the Presidential elections was almost 87%. Out of this turnout Lukashenko won elections with 86.8% of the vote.
Four other people were contesting the elections alongside Lukashenko, none of whom presented any potential challenge to Lukashenko. Furthermore, the contenders were some of the loyals of the old-aged President.
The main opponents of Lukoshenko were either in jail or exile abroad. The country has nearly 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center.
In the 2020 elections, Lukashenko underestimated Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of one of his jailed opponents, and allowed her to contest. However, according to exiled opposition figures, she claimed victory in the election but was subsequently forced out of the country by Lukashenko, who declared himself the winner. This year Lukashenko did not take any chance of this kind.
Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure in 2020, claimed the election as “a senseless farce, a Lukashenko ritual.” She asserted that Lukoshenko has destroyed all independent media and opposition parties and filled the prisons with political prisoners.
Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy posted on X, “Today’s sham election in Belarus was neither free nor fair. The people of Belarus deserve a real say in who governs their country.” She further stated to be hoisting Tsikhanouskaya with EU Foreign Ministers to reaffirm their support for a free and democratic Belarus.
Meanwhile, Lukashenko’s long-time ally Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated him for his “solid victory” and called the election an “absolutely legitimate, well organized, transparent election” and criticized “the voices that sound from the West”.
Lukashenko has been supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine, with Belarus serving as a launch pad for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and hosting the deployment of tactical nuclearweapons on its soil.
