No Choice for Belarus: Lukashenko Extends Rule with Disputed Vote

Alexander Lukashenko is considered a good friend of Russia and he has declared himself the winner of the country’s presidential election. Belarus Central Election Commission said that Lukashenko had gotten 86.8% of the vote, This process has been disliked by European leaders. They think it was not any fair election.

Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results published on the Central Election Commission’s official Telegram account. European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media are banned in the former Soviet republic and all leading opposition figures have either been jailed or forced to flee abroad.

“The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for all those who long for freedom & democracy,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X. Election officials said turnout was 85.7% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.

 

Asked about the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko had told a news conference on Sunday that they had chosen their own fate. “Some chose prison, some chose ‘exile’, as you say. We didn’t kick anyone out of the country,” he told a rambling news conference that lasted more than four hours.

 

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin who allowed the Russian leader to use his country as a staging area for sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, Lukashenko had earlier defended his jailing of dissidents and declared: “I don’t give a damn about the West.”

 

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters this week that Lukashenko had engineered his re-election as part of a “ritual for dictators”. Demonstrations against him took place on Sunday in Warsaw and other East European cities. Lukashenko shrugged off the criticism as meaningless and said he did not care whether the West recognised the election.