Belarus election poised to extend 30-year rule of Lukashenko, ‘Europe’s last dictator’
With opponents jailed or exiled, Alexander Lukashenko has also brought polling forward, with protests considered less likely in frigid weather
The last time Belarus staged a presidential election in 2020, authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80 per cent of the vote. That triggered cries of fraud, months of protests and a harsh crackdown with thousands of arrests.
Not wanting to risk such unrest again by those opposing his three decades of iron-fisted rule, Lukashenko advanced the timing of the 2025 election – from the warmth of August to 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 only leader most people in post-Soviet Belarus have ever known.
Here’s what to know about Belarus, its election and its relationship with Russia:
‘Europe’s last dictator’ and his reliance on Russia
Belarus was part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. The Slavic nation of 9 million people is sandwiched between Russia and Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the latter three all Nato members. It was overrun by Nazi Germany in World War II.