Belarus Presidential Elections Begin; Lukashenko Runs for Seventh Consecutive Term

The people of Belarus went to the polls on Sunday, February 26, with expectations that Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, will be elected president for the seventh time. The 70-year-old Lukashenko, known as 'the last dictator of Europe,' has been president since 1994 when Belarus gained independence, and his victory in this election is also anticipated. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader of Belarus, described the current elections in her country as a 'joke' in an interview with AFP. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya's husband has been imprisoned in Belarus for years and has not been allowed to contact the outside world for a year. Meanwhile, the director general of the elections office of the Iranian Ministry of Interior stated that at the invitation of Belarusian officials, 'a delegation from the Iranian election headquarters has traveled to Minsk as an international observer for the presidential elections in this country.' The people of Belarus last participated in presidential elections in 2020 for the sixth time in the country's modern history. The legitimacy of the elections in this country has always been contested, but in that year, Lukashenko's power was seriously challenged for the first time. However, the government announced that Alexander Lukashenko won the election with 80% of the votes. According to estimates by the human rights organization 'Viasna,' which monitors Belarusian affairs, over 50,000 people have been arrested in the country for political reasons over the past four years. On February 25, Lukashenko warned his opponents and 'enemies' in a speech that they should 'not hope' that the events and protests of 2020 would be repeated. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, described the upcoming elections in Belarus as a staged and 'fraudulent' event and emphasized that Lukashenko has no legitimacy. Over the past four years, Alexander Lukashenko has imprisoned all his opponents or sent them into exile, dedicating himself entirely to supporting Vladimir Putin and even allowing Moscow to use his territory for attacks on Ukraine. Additionally, since the beginning of this year, measures have been implemented in Belarus that broadly allow the government to send children of parents who have expressed any opposition to Lukashenko's regime to orphanages. Many individuals who were arrested during the street protests against the regime in 2020 and 2021 on charges of 'extremism' now face the threat of losing their children.