Belarus' Mock Election

In this guest post, professor David Marples analyses how Lukashenka continues to be solidly in the Putin camp when it comes to 'democracy', oppression and support for the invasion of Ukraine.

(Collage by EuroMaidan Press)

BY DAVID MARPLES

What are we to make of the recent (Jan 26) presidential election in Belarus?

On the face of it, it was a pointless exercise with a foregone conclusion. Lukashenka was declared the winner with 88% of the vote, and, adding a further element of farce, in second place was “none of the above” (3.6%). The highest place candidate other than the regime leader was Siarhei Syrankou, who received 3.2%.

The group of opposing candidates was composed mostly of sycophants who agreed to authenticate the election by making up the numbers. Aleh Haidukevich continues a tradition begun by his father Siarhei, both leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party, of entering presidential contests simply to make the contest appear bona fide.

The election was held more than six months early, in the depths of winter. The regime had dissolved all credible opposition political parties beforehand, arrested their leaders, or harassed them into exile. Prior to the election, a groundswell of arrests prevented even the remotest chance of mass demonstrations like the ones that had taken place in 2020.

The 2025 election was in fact all about the disastrous presidential campaign five years earlier. Lukashenka sought to convince the world that he was still popular, and above all that he was a legitimate president.

If that was the goal, however, it failed badly. Other than the ritual nods from allies in the Kremlin or Beijing, much of the world ignored the election and its result.

Lukashenka is one of the world’s longest serving dictators (Belarus’ first and only president, in power since 1994), a criminal who has tortured prisoners, committed murders, and remained in power by brute force. Further, he has hijacked a plane (2021), and played a significant support role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In this way he has lost his previous (dubious) value to the West of being an alternative to Putin, leader of a central European country caught between Russia and the European Union, with a foreign policy that allowed him to deal with both entities. Today his position is little more than that of a vassal of Moscow.

There were signs a couple of years ago that the idea of stepping down had at least crossed his mind. His health is poor, at times he can barely walk, and gone are the days when he would don a hockey helmet and stick, or roller blade around Drazdy. The new Constitution empowered a People’s Assembly (he is naturally its Chair) that would be ready to ensure a loyal successor and allow him a quiet retirement.

(Lukashenka at a press conference after having ‘won’ the ‘elections’ - probably not quite sincerely - admitting that “it’s already been 30 years …. it feels kind of improper”)

He decided, perhaps wisely, that retirement was not an option given his chequered past. He enjoys the spotlight and attention, and besides, he has too many enemies. His fears are evident in the way potential rivals are harassed and persecuted. The rival candidate from 2020, the former banker and philanthropist Viktar Babaryka, is serving a 14-year prison sentence and if he serves the full term until 2035, he will be 71 by the time he is released.

Babaryka’s name heads lengthy list of enemies, from Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the official opposition candidate of 2020, who likely led Lukashenka in the final vote, to the exiled former Belarusian Popular Front leader Zianon Pazniak in Warsaw exile, former Minister of Culture Pavel Latushka, sentenced to 18 years in absentia, down to journalists and intellectuals, twenty of whom received sentences in absentia of ten years or more.

The world is more familiar perhaps with Ales Bialatski, the courageous literary scholar and former secretary of the Belarusian Popular Front, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, who has devoted his life to the pursuit of democracy in Belarus. He was put on trial in 2023 and given a ten-year sentence “for actions grossly violating public order,” a disgraceful but only the latest sentence given to this human rights activist, now aged 62.

The exiles now number hundreds of thousands, including some of the brightest young minds of Belarus, who cannot return without justified fear of being arrested at the border as soon as they step off the plane, or bus. Some have considered returning to renew their passports and ended up in a crowded prison cell.

Thus, we have less a widely popular president than a dictator cut off from most of his people through fear. His country is no longer running a strong economy, as sanctions cut off his most valuable exports like potash and agricultural machinery by denying port access in Lithuania.

Under such circumstances, the presidential elections of 2025 should be seen for what they were: a public show without validity or significance other than confirming what we already know. That the dictatorship continues, for now.

Dr. David Marples is a professor of Russian and East European History at the University of Alberta. This article was first published here and is reprinted with the author’s permission.