INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The last time Belarus staged a presidential election in 2020, authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of
That triggered cries of fraud, months of protests and a harsh crackdown with thousands of arrests.Not wanting to risk such unrest again by
frigid January, when demonstrators are less likely to fill the streets.With many of his political opponents either jailed or exiled abroad,
the 70-year-old Lukashenko is back on the ballot, and when the election concludes on Sunday, he is all but certain to add a seventh term as
The Slavic nation of 9 million people is sandwiched between Russia and Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the latter three all NATO
for a quarter century.Lukashenko, a former state farm director, was first elected in 1994, riding public anger over a catastrophic plunge in
living standards after chaotic and painful free-market reforms
elections that the West has called neither free nor fair.An open admirer of the Soviet Union, he has restored Soviet-style controls on the
with the West, repression at homeAs he bargained with the Kremlin over the years for more 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 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 sweeping crackdown in which over 65,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by police and hundreds of independent media
outlets and nongovernmental organizations were closed and outlawed, drawing Western sanctions.Leading opposition figures have either been
imprisoned or fled the country
Human rights activists say Belarus holds about 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, the founder
Valery Karbalevich gave a different reason
described as political prisoners by rights activists.The pardons, however, come amid heightened repressions aimed at uprooting any remaining
Hundreds have been arrested in raids that targeted relatives and friends of political prisoners
Other arrests include participants in online chats organized by residents of apartment buildings in various cities.Katya Glod, policy fellow
ballot by the Central Election Commission
said Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka.Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election
and was forced to flee the country afterward, says the latest vote is a farce and urged Belarusians to vote against every candidate
umbrellaIn December 2024, Lukashenko and Putin signed a treaty that gave security guarantees to Belarus that included the possible use of
Russian nuclear umbrella amid tensions with the West over the war in Ukraine.Lukashenko says Belarus is hosting dozens of Russian tactical
Oreshnik hypersonic missile that was used in Ukraine for the first time in November
