Russia-Ukraine War
President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, has been making signs of reaching out to the West. He is all but certain to win an election on Sunday.
When Aleksandr G. Lukashenko last ran for president of Belarus, the former Soviet republic he has led since 1994, he faced an unusual phenomenon: rival candidates who actually tried to win. His eventual victory in that election, in 2020, widely regarded as fraudulent, was met with nationwide protests, a subsequent brutal crackdown supported by Russia and then Western penalties.
This time, in a presidential election set for Sunday, Mr. Lukashenko’s all-but-certain victory — his seventh in a row — is likely to be smoother. He has allowed four other, state-approved candidates to run, but they compete only in showering praise on him. Candidates who could pose a threat to his rule have all been jailed or forced into exile. He controls the media and all levers of power in his country.
“There is no genuine choice — all we have is this farcical facade of the candidates who all come from pro-government parties,” said Katia Glod, a nonresident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington who is originally from Belarus.
“It is like in Russia now: There are no candidates who can represent an alternative view,” she said.
Mr. Lukashenko is so confident of winning another term that he has eschewed campaigning, saying he was too busy with tasks like testing a new Belarusian-made ax. State media on Thursday showed him chopping wood.
Two decades after the United States declared Belarus “the last remaining true dictatorship in the heart of Europe,” Mr. Lukashenko is determined to put the 2020 election behind him and prove to his country — and to Russia — that his grip is firm.
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