Alexander Lukashenko won the seventh term as Belarusian president in the Sunday’s election that will extend his three-decade rule. Belarusian election commission announced on Sunday that Lukashenko won with over 87% of the votes in the election that had a voter turnout of 85.7%. Four opposition candidates who are loyal to Lukashenko appeared on the ballot.
Lukashenko has won every presidential election since 1994, ruling the nation of 9 million with an iron fist. The Sunday’s election was slammed as “sham” by Belarus opposition, and the European parliament last week. The vote was condemned by western leaders as well.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the vote a “bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy”. Polish foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski mocked Lukashenko’s repressive regime, expressing surprise that “only” 87.6% of voters appeared to have backed Lukashenko. “Will the rest fit inside the prisons?” he wrote on X social media platform. Belarusian exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya condmened the vote as a “farce” and “sham. “What in the democratic world you call elections has nothing in common with this event in Belarus,” she said.
However, his closest ally Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko on Monday for achieving a “confident victory”.
The Sunday’s voting was the first one since the contested election of 2020, which was followed by mass anti-government protests and government’s crackdown on dissent. Most Western countries rejected to recognize legitimacy of Lukashenko’s presidency, saying that the vote was rigged.
