(Moscow) The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said on Sunday that he would run for his own succession next year, an announcement made on the day of legislative elections described as a sham election by an opposition in exile and bloodless after years of repression.
After his much-maligned re-election in 2020, the Belarusian leader cracked down on unprecedented opposition protests, throwing hundreds in prison and forcing thousands into exile.
“Tell them all that I am going to run” in 2025, said, after voting, the man who has been in charge of the country since 1994, according to the Telegram channel managed by his team.
No opposition was able to participate in Sunday’s legislative elections. Its exiled leaders called on the population to boycott the vote.
Mr. Lukashenko also stressed that the authorities had learned the lessons of 2020 and assured that there would be “no rebellions” on Sunday.
In January, the Belarusian authorities again increased raids targeting relatives of opponents and political prisoners, according to human rights movements.
The NGO Viasna, whose founder and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski is serving a ten-year prison sentence, lists 1,419 political prisoners in the country.
Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, whose husband is in prison, called Sunday’s vote a sham election.
“Let me be clear, the regime’s attempt to use these sham elections to legitimize itself is doomed to failure,” she said in an online video.
Belarus, under Western sanctions, is largely isolated on the international scene, but it is Russia’s main ally, having even lent it its territory in February 2022 to enable the assault on Ukraine.
PHOTO DMITRY ASTAKHOV, SPUTNIK, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
“We will always be with Russia,” insisted Mr. Lukashenko, who depends on the political and economic support of the Kremlin.