The final time Belarus staged a presidential election in 2020, authoritarian chief Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of the vote. That triggered cries of fraud, months of protests and a harsh crackdown with hundreds of arrests.
Not desirous to threat such unrest once more by these opposing his three a long time of iron-fisted rule, Lukashenko superior the timing of the 2025 election—from the heat of August to frigid January, when demonstrators are much less more likely to fill the streets.
With a lot of his political opponents both jailed or exiled overseas, the 70-year-old Lukashenko is again on the poll, and when the election concludes on Sunday, he’s all however sure so as to add a seventh time period as the one chief most individuals in post-Soviet Belarus have ever recognized.
Right here’s what to learn about Belarus, its election and its relationship with Russia:
‘Europe’s final dictator’ and his reliance on Russia
Belarus was a part of the Soviet Union till its collapse in 1991. The Slavic nation of 9 million individuals is sandwiched between Russia and Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the latter three all NATO members. It was overrun by Nazi Germany in World Warfare II.
It’s been intently allied with Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin—himself in energy for 1 / 4 century.
Lukashenko, a former state farm director, was first elected in 1994, using public anger over a catastrophic plunge in dwelling requirements after chaotic and painful free-market reforms. He promised to fight corruption.
All through his rule, he’s relied on subsidies and political assist from Russia, permitting it to make use of Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and later agreeing to host a few of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.
Lukashenko was dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” early in his tenure, and he has lived as much as that nickname, harshly silencing dissent and lengthening his rule by elections that the West has known as neither free nor truthful.
An open admirer of the Soviet Union, he has restored Soviet-style controls on the financial system, discouraged use of the Belarusian language in favor of Russian, and pushed for abandoning the nation’s red-and-white nationwide flag in favor of 1 just like what it used as a Soviet republic.
Belarus’ high safety company saved its fearsome Soviet-era title of the KGB, and it’s the one nation in Europe to maintain the dying penalty, with executions carried out with a gunshot to the again of the top.
Flirtation with the West, repression at dwelling
As he bargained with the Kremlin over time for extra subsidies, Lukashenko periodically tried to appease the West by easing repressions. Such flirtations ended after he unleashed a violent suppression of dissent after the 2020 election.
That election to his sixth time period was extensively seen at dwelling and overseas as rigged, and it sparked months of large protests, the most important ever seen in Belarus.
Authorities responded with a sweeping crackdown during which over 65,000 individuals have been arrested, hundreds have been crushed by police and a whole lot of impartial media retailers and nongovernmental organizations have been closed and outlawed, drawing Western sanctions.
Main opposition figures have both been imprisoned or fled the nation. Human rights activists say Belarus holds about 1,300 political prisoners, together with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, the founding father of the nation’s high rights group, Viasna.
Lukashenko’s maneuvers earlier than the election
Though Lukashenko’s present time period doesn’t expire till summer time, the election was moved up in what officers stated would enable him “to train his powers on the preliminary stage of strategic planning.”
Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich gave a special motive, saying “There received’t be mass protests in freezing January,” he stated.
In different maneuvering, Lukashenko has pardoned 250 individuals described as political prisoners by rights activists.
The pardons, nevertheless, come amid heightened repressions geared toward uprooting any remaining indicators of dissent. A whole bunch have been arrested in raids that focused kinfolk and buddies of political prisoners. Different arrests embody members in on-line chats organized by residents of condominium buildings in varied cities.
Not like the 2020 election, Lukashenko faces solely token challengers, with different opposition candidates rejected for the poll by the Central Election Fee. The election started with early voting Tuesday and concludes Sunday.
“The politicians who as soon as dared to problem Lukashenko at the moment are actually rotting in jail in torture circumstances, there was no contact with them for over a yr, and a few of them are in very poor well being,” stated Viasna consultant Pavel Sapelka.
Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko within the 2020 election and was compelled to flee the nation afterward, says the most recent vote is a farce and urged Belarusians to vote in opposition to each candidate. Her husband, activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski, tried to run 4 years in the past however was jailed and stays imprisoned.
Beneath Russia’s nuclear umbrella
In December 2024, Lukashenko and Putin signed a treaty that gave safety ensures to Belarus that included the doable use of Russian nuclear weapons.
The pact adopted Moscow’s revision of its nuclear doctrine, which for the primary time positioned Belarus beneath the Russian nuclear umbrella amid tensions with the West over the conflict in Ukraine.
Lukashenko says Belarus is internet hosting dozens of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Their deployment extends Russia’s functionality to focus on Ukraine and NATO allies in Europe.
He additionally stated Belarus will put together to host Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile that was utilized in Ukraine for the primary time in November. Putin stated the missiles might be deployed to Belarus within the second half of 2025, remaining beneath Moscow’s management whereas Minsk will choose the targets.
