Biélorusian President Alexandre Loukachenko re -elected for a seventh term during a qualified election as “masquerade” by the EU

The autocrat had suffocated any internal dissent, after a movement of demonstrations in 2020.

The Autocrat assumed Alexandre Loukachenko was re -elected Sunday, January 26 at Bélarus, with 87.6% of the vote, according to an official survey at the exit of the ballot boxes. No opposition is tolerated in this former Soviet Republic which he has directed with an iron fist since 1994. During his sixth term, the 70 -year -old leader completely suffocated any dissent after unpublished demonstrations having targeted him in 2020.

Supported by Moscow, he had then managed to consolidate his power with arrests, violence and long prison terms aimed at opponents, journalists, employees of NGOs and simple demonstrators. According to the UN, more than 300,000 Belarusians, out of a population of nine million, have fled their country for political reasons, especially in neighboring Poland. In Warsaw, around 1,000 people gathered on Sunday around Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, to denounce the insured re -election of the leader.

The opposition in exile denounced Sunday “A farce” in a without suspense election. The European Union (EU) “will continue to impose restrictive and targeted measures against the regime” of Alexandre Loukachenko after the “masquerade” What constitutes the presidential election, had underlined the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas in a statement published during the day. “Democracy requires free, fair and transparent elections (…) This is not the case in Belarus”, she said.