The presidential election in Belarus, where the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for three decades, will be held on January 26, 2025. This was announced on Wednesday by the state election commission, which the AFP agency referred to in its report, writes TASR.
Photo: SITA/AP
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko after voting in a polling station in Minsk, Belarus
President Lukashenko, unrecognized by the West, has ruled Belarus since 1994. During that time, he eliminated all forms of opposition and in February 2022 allowed Russian armed forces to invade Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Lukashenko is expected to run again in the January elections. Critics accuse him of ruling an increasingly authoritarian country with restrictions on human rights and jailing of political opponents.
Belarus was rocked in 2020 by mass protests that erupted after Lukashenko declared himself the winner of a disputed presidential election, securing a sixth term in office. These elections were condemned by the West and the Belarusian opposition as a fraud.
Human rights groups said Belarusian authorities have detained more than 35,000 people in response to the protests, some of them brutally beaten. They also imprisoned several important representatives of the opposition, others managed to escape abroad.
The opposition leader and challenger Lukashenko Sviatlana Cichanovská also declared herself the winner of the 2020 elections and subsequently fled to Lithuania.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
