Self-proclaimed autocrat Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected in Belarus on Sunday, January 26, 2025, with 87.6% of the vote, according to an official exit poll.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected for a five-year term on Sunday with 87.6% of the vote, according to an official exit poll, due to the lack of a tolerated opposition in the former Soviet republic that he has ruled with an iron fist since 1994.
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was forced into exile and whose husband is imprisoned in the country, denounced from Warsaw “a farce”, calling the leader a “criminal” and demanding the release of all political prisoners.
The EU and human rights NGOs have also described the election as a sham scene, the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas estimating Saturday that Mr. Lukashenko had “no legitimacy”.
“We have a brutal democracy in Belarus”, the 70-year-old president acknowledged at a press conference in Minsk attended by an AFP journalist, after voting in the unimportant election.
The leader acknowledged that people who took part in the unprecedented mass protests against his rule in 2020 had since been barred from certain jobs, saying they could apply for a pardon if they admitted “that they were wrong”.
“We won't prosecute everyone, but we are monitoring them,”, he warned, despite having relied on the all-powerful local KGB for three decades. “We have a complete file with all their photos”.
On Sunday, only four candidates handpicked by the authorities acted as foils.
“For a free Belarus”
During his sixth term, Alexander Lukashenko completely stifled all dissent after the large demonstrations that followed the 2020 presidential election.
Backed by Moscow, he then managed to consolidate his power with arrests, violence and long prison sentences targeting opponents, journalists, NGO employees and ordinary demonstrators.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000According to the UN, more than 300,000 Belarusians, out of a population of nine million, have fled their country for political reasons, particularly to neighboring Poland.
In Warsaw, around 1,000 people gathered Sunday around Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, to denounce the assured re-election of leader.
Many people wore masks and some refused to speak to AFP, saying that speaking to the media could get their relatives in trouble in Belarus.
“Belarus has long been living under a dictatorship where freedom of expression and elections are impossible,”, Alexander Soustchevsky, a 25-year-old photographer, told AFP.
He describes it as “a great tragedy” for his country, but assures us: “We will continue to fight for a free Belarus!”
For Ales, a 24-year-old student who has not wanted to give his last name, Lukashenko is “an absolutely incompetent man, who only keeps his power thanks to the support of Russia”.
Since 2020, Alexander Lukashenko has grown closer to Vladimir Putin — whom he called his “big brother” on Sunday — to the point of making his territory available to invade Ukraine in 2022.
Asked by AFP about possible regrets given the scale of the human toll of the Russian invasion, he replied firmly: “I don't regret anything.”
Alliance with Putin
In Minsk, Irina Lebedeva, a 68-year-old retiree, told AFP that she had voted for him. “Thanks to our president, there is peace in the country”, she justifies.
Nadejda Goujalovskaya, 74, also voted for “batka”, “father” in Belarusian. But she reluctantly acknowledges that the subject is so taboo: “Maybe everything is not perfect, that we are not in a democracy…”.
Faced with repression, the West imposed heavy sanctions on Belarus, leading Alexander Lukashenko to accelerate his rapprochement with the Kremlin.
As an illustration of this alliance, the Russian army deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in the summer of 2023, a threat to kyiv but also to NATO members bordering the country (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland).
Mr. Lukashenko repeated on Sunday that he wanted to receive Russian intermediate-range “Orechnik” ballistic missiles on his soil. Human rights organizations estimate that the country still has more than 1,200 political prisoners held in harsh conditions.