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Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule with a massive win in a presidential election that Western governments have rejected as a sham, according to preliminary results on Monday.
“You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus, we have elected a president,” the head of the country’s Central Election Commission of the Republic Igor Karpenko told a press conference in the early hours of Monday, according to Russian state media.
According to results published on the Central Election Commission’s Telegram account, Lukashenko took 86.8% of the vote in Sunday’s election.
European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media are banned in the former Soviet state and all leading opposition figures have been sent to penal colonies or forced to flee abroad.
But his opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, would disagree. They call the election a sham — much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people.
The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.
His iron-fisted rule since 1994 — Lukashenko took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union — earned him the nickname of “Europe’s Last Dictator,” relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia.
According to official results, announced in the early hours of Monday, Lukashenko won 86.82% of the vote – compared to his nearest rival’s 3.21%. According to the Central Election Commission, 3.60% of voters spoilt their ballots.
In 2020, the electoral body claimed Lukashenko had taken 80.10% of the vote.
“The trauma of the 2020 protests was so deep that Lukashenko this time decided not to take risks and opted for the most reliable option when balloting looks more like a special operation to retain power than an election,” Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich said.
Lukashenko repeatedly declared that he wasn’t clinging to power and would “quietly and calmly hand it over to the new generation.”
His 20-year-old son, Nikolai, traveled the country, giving interviews, signing autographs and playing piano at campaign events. His father hasn’t mentioned his own health, even though he was seen having difficulty walking and occasionally spoke in a hoarse voice.
“The successor issue only becomes relevant when a leader prepares to step down. But Lukashenko isn’t going to leave,” Karbalevich said.
Read more via AP