Alexander Lukashenko is set to win the seventh term as Belarusian President with 87,6% of votes on Sunday election, according to exit poll results, the state TV reported on January 26. Belarus electoral commission said the voting turnout was 81.5% in the vote that had 6.9 million eligible voters. The polling stations opened at 8am local time.
The 70-year-old Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994. His victory in last presidential election in 2020 triggered mass anti-government protests followed by the government’s unrelenting crackdown on dissent. The crackdown saw over 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, drawing condemnation and sanctions from the West. Lukashenko’s critics were jailed or forces into exile. Most Western countries rejected the outcome of the 2020 election due to voting rigging and irregularities.
Lukashenko’s main rival in 2020, opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said last week that Sunday’s presidential election was a “sham” and “a military-style operation; a performance staged by the regime to hold on to power."
On January 22, the European Parliament passed a resolution, condemning the Sunday’s election as “sham” and urging the international community not to recognized the legitimacy of Lukashenko due to “the lack of freedom, fairness, and transparency ahead of the presidential elections”.
Lukashenko is Vladimir Putin’s closest ally and has allowed Kremlin’s use of Belarusian territory to wage full-fledged war in Ukraine since February 2022.
