The self-confessed autocrat Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected this Sunday, January 26 in Belarus, which he has led since 1994, with 87.6% of the vote. During his sixth term, the 70-year-old leader completely stifled all dissent after unprecedented demonstrations targeting him in 2020.
The President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected this Sunday, January 26 for five years with 87.6% of the votes, according to an official exit poll, due to a lack of tolerated opposition in this former Soviet republic that he leads. with an iron fist since 1994.
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, forced into exile and whose husband is imprisoned in the country, for her part denounced from Warsaw “a farce”, describing the leader as a “criminal” and demanding the release of all political prisoners.
The EU and human rights NGOs have also described this election as staged, with the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas estimating on Saturday that Alexander Lukashenko had “no legitimacy”.
“We have a brutal democracy in Belarus”
“We have a brutal democracy in Belarus,” admitted the 70-year-old president during a press conference in Minsk attended by an AFP journalist, after having voted for this election without any issues.
The leader acknowledged that people who participated in major unprecedented protests against his power in 2020 had since been excluded from certain jobs, saying they could request a pardon if they recognized “that they were wrong”.
“We will not pursue everyone, but we monitor them,” he warned, even though he has relied for three decades on the all-powerful local KGB. “We have a complete file with all their photos.”
On Sunday, only four candidates hand-picked by those in power acted as foils.
At least 1,200 political prisoners held in difficult conditions
During his sixth term, Alexander Lukashenko completely stifled any dissent after the major demonstrations which followed the 2020 presidential election. Supported by Moscow, he then managed to consolidate his power with arrests, violence and long prison sentences. targeting opponents, journalists, NGO employees and simple demonstrators.
-Human rights organizations estimate that the country still has more than 1,200 political prisoners held in difficult conditions. According to the UN, more than 300,000 Belarusians, out of a population of nine million, have fled their country for political reasons, particularly to neighboring Poland.
In Warsaw, around 1,000 people gathered around Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Sunday to denounce the leader's assured re-election. Many people wore masks and some refused to testify to AFP, citing the fact that speaking to the media could get their loved ones still in Belarus in trouble.
“Belarus has lived for a long time under a dictatorship where freedom of expression and elections are impossible,” declared Alexander Suchevsky, a 25-year-old photographer. He evokes “a great tragedy” for his country, but assures: “We will continue to fight for a free Belarus!”
For Ales, a 24-year-old student who did not want to give his last name, Lukashenko is “an absolutely incompetent man, who only keeps his power thanks to the support of Russia.”
A close friend of Vladimir Putin
Since 2020, Alexander Lukashenko has grown closer to Vladimir Putin – whom he described this Sunday as “big brother” -, to the point of making his territory available to invade Ukraine in 2022. Questioned by AFP on d possible regrets given the scale of the human toll of the Russian invasion, he replied in a firm tone: “I regret nothing”.
In Minsk, Irina Lebedeva, a 68-year-old retiree, said she voted for him. “Thanks to our president, there is peace in the country,” she explains. Nadezhda Gujalovskaïa, 74, also voted for “batka”, “father” in Belarusian. But she acknowledges half-heartedly as the subject is taboo: “Perhaps everything is not perfect, that we are not in a democracy…”.
Faced with repression, the West imposed heavy sanctions on Belarus, leading Alexander Lukashenko to accelerate his rapprochement with the Kremlin. Illustration of this alliance, the Russian army deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in the summer of 2023, a threat for kyiv but also for the NATO members bordering the country (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland). Alexander Lukashenko repeated on Sunday that he wanted to receive Russian intermediate-range “Orechnik” ballistic missiles on his soil.
