Bélarus: Loukachenko, at the gates of a seventh term

Bélarus: Loukachenko, at the gates of a seventh term
Bélarus: Loukachenko, at the gates of a seventh term

Presidential at Bélarus

Loukachenko, at the gates of a seventh term

The elections take place in Bélarus this Sunday. Very criticized by the West, their exits will probably not reserve a surprise.

Posted today at 4:00 p.m.

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Bottal

The Belarusses vote on Sunday in the presidential election which must ensure a seventh consecutive term to the autocrat Alexandre Loukachenko, a ballot qualified as “farce” by the opposition in exile.

“We have a brutal democracy in Bélarus,” said journalists the president in power since 1994, after having voted in Minsk for this ballot devoid of stake. He added that political prisoners held in the country could request a grace, while excluding any dialogue with the opposition in exile.

“What is happening today is a farce,” denounced the leader of the opposition in exile from Warsaw, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, while four handpicked candidates by power make figuration in the ballot. She described Mr. Loukachenko as “a criminal who seized power”, and called for the release of all political prisoners as well as for free elections.

Mr. Loukachenko, whom some suspect of wanting to transfer power to one of his three sons, denied the rumor. His youngest son, Nikolai, “would not dream in his worst nightmare” to become president and “none of my sons could,” he assured journalists.

A staging election

The European Union, the detractors of Mr. Loukachenko and human rights NGOs have already qualified this staging election. With this presidential election, the 70-year-old leader intends to continue his reign for at least five years at the head of this former Soviet republic of the EU, Ukraine and Russia.

During his sixth mandate, Alexandre Loukachenko completely suffocated any dissent after unpublished demonstrations having targeted him in 2020. He got closer to Moscow, until it made available to the Russian army its territory to invade Ukraine in 2022.

In Minsk, Nadejda Goujalovskaïa, a 74 -year -old retiree, who qualifies “patriot”, said to vote for “the first time in 20 years”. Like many voters, in the absence of an alternative, she voted for Alexandre Loukachenko. “I do not want a Maidan,” she justifies, in reference to the 2014 PROMECOCTY REVOLUTION in kyiv in Ukraine.

“Perhaps not everything is perfect, that we are not in a democracy …”, she said with lips, touching a taboo subject in a very repressive context.

Peace in the country

Irina Lebedeva, 68, who votes she “each time”, estimates that “thanks to our president, there is peace in the country”, an argument repeated by the Belarusses encountered in recent days by AFP .

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In Brussels, the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas said on Saturday that Mr. Loukachenko “has no legitimacy”. She described the “masquerade” and “affront to democracy” election.

In an interview with AFP in early January, the opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, candidate for the 2020 presidential election, had denounced an election “simulacrum”.

In his Martial Customary style, Alexandre Loukachenko warned his opponents on Friday: “We will never repeat what happened in 2020!”. At the time, tens of thousands of blunders came down to the street to denounce a rigged presidential election.

Supported by his Russian ally Vladimir Putin, he had succeeded in consolidating his power with arrests, violence and long prison terms targeting opponents, journalists, employees of NGOs and simple demonstrators.

300,000 people fled

According to the United Nations, more than 300,000 blunders, out of a population of nine million, fled their country for political reasons, mainly towards Poland. Faced with this repression, the Westerners imposed heavy sanctions on the Bélarus, leading Alexandre Loukachenko to accelerate his rapprochement with the Kremlin, abandoning his balancingist game between Moscow and the West.

Illustration of this alliance, the Bélarusian territory served as the rear base for the forces of Vladimir Putin in February 2022 to invade Ukraine. And Moscow deployed in the summer of 2023 tactical nuclear weapons, a threat to kyiv but also for the members of NATO bordering the Bélarus (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland).

Mr. Loukachenko, a colorful character who likes to appear in uniform, driving a tractor or a weapon in hand, posed in rampart against the chaos of the war in Ukraine. This imposing build must also like to tour factories. Former collective farm director, known for his assumed macho style, he welcomes himself to have maintained an economy widely controlled by the State.

Human rights organizations believe that the country has more than 1,200 political prisoners.

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