TThe last time Belarus held a presidential election in 2020, authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of the vote. This sparked cries of fraud, months of protests and a harsh crackdown with thousands of arrests.
Unwilling to risk further unrest from those opposed to his three decades of iron-fisted rule, Lukashenko brought forward the timetable for the 2025 elections – from hot August to freezing January , when protesters are less likely to fill the streets.
With many of his political opponents imprisoned or exiled abroad, Lukashenko, 70, is back on the ballot, and when elections end Sunday, he is almost certain to add a seventh term as sole leader of most people. Post-Soviet Belarus has never experienced.
Here’s what you need to know about Belarus, its elections and its relations with Russia:
“Europe’s last dictator” and his dependence on Russia
Belarus was part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. This Slavic nation of 9 million is sandwiched between Russia and Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the latter three being all members of NATO. It was invaded by Nazi Germany during World War II.
It is closely allied with Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself in power for a quarter of a century.
Lukashenko, a former state farm director, was first elected in 1994, tapping into public anger over the catastrophic fall in living standards after chaotic and painful free-market reforms. He promised to fight corruption.
Throughout his tenure, he relied on subsidies and political support from Russia, allowing him to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and later agreeing to host some of the country’s tactical nuclear weapons. Russians.
Lukashenko was dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” early in his term, and he lived up to that moniker, harshly silencing dissent and extending his rule through elections that the West called neither free nor fair.
An outspoken admirer of the Soviet Union, he reestablished Soviet-style controls on the economy, discouraged the use of the Belarusian language in favor of Russian, and pushed for the abandonment of the country’s red and white national flag in favor with a flag similar to that of the Soviet Union. it was once a Soviet republic.
Belarus’ top security agency has retained its fearsome Soviet-era KGB name, and it is the only country in Europe to maintain the death penalty, with executions carried out with a bullet to the back of the head.
Flirting with the West, repression at home
As he negotiated with the Kremlin over the years for more subsidies, Lukashenko periodically attempted to appease the West by easing repression. Such flirtations ended after he unleashed a violent crackdown on dissent after the 2020 election.
That election for his sixth term was widely seen at home and abroad as rigged, and it sparked months of massive protests, the largest ever seen in Belarus.
Authorities responded with a widespread crackdown in which more than 65,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by police, and hundreds of independent media and nongovernmental organizations were closed and banned, leading to sanctions. Western.
Opposition figures have been imprisoned or fled the country. Human rights activists say Belarus holds around 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and the founder of the country’s main rights group, Viasna.
Lukashenko’s maneuvers before the elections
Although Lukashenko’s current term does not expire until the summer, the elections were brought forward, which officials said would allow him “to exercise his powers from the initial phase of strategic planning.”
Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich gave a different reason, saying that “there will be no mass protests in frosty January,” he said.
In other moves, Lukashenko pardoned 250 people described as political prisoners by human rights activists.
These pardons, however, come in a context of increased repression aimed at rooting out any remaining signs of dissent. Hundreds of people have been arrested in raids targeting relatives and friends of political prisoners. Other arrests involve participants in online chats organized by residents of apartment buildings in various cities.
Unlike the 2020 elections, Lukashenko faces only token challengers, with other opposition candidates having been rejected by the Central Election Commission. The elections began on Tuesday with early voting and will end on Sunday.
“Politicians who dared to defy Lukashenko are now literally languishing in prison, under torture conditions, there has been no contact with them for over a year and some of them are in very poor health,” said Pavel Sapelka, representative of Viasna.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election and was later forced to flee the country, said the latest vote was a farce and urged Belarusians to vote against every candidate. Her husband, activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski, tried to run four years ago but was jailed and remains incarcerated.
Under the Russian nuclear umbrella
In December 2024, Lukashenko and Putin signed a treaty offering security guarantees to Belarus, including the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons.
The agreement follows Moscow’s review of its nuclear doctrine, which for the first time brought Belarus under Russia’s nuclear umbrella amid tensions with the West over the war in Ukraine.
Lukashenko claims Belarus hosts dozens of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Their deployment expands Russia’s ability to target Ukraine and NATO allies in Europe.
He also said Belarus would prepare to host Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile, first used in Ukraine in November. Putin said the missiles could be deployed to Belarus in the second half of 2025, remaining under Moscow’s control while Minsk selects targets.
