Lukashenko won more than 80 percent of votes, according to exit polls.
Advertisement
Ahead of Sunday’s ballot, Lukashenko had said it would be “a bad sign” if he received less votes than five years ago. They waved red-and-white flags (a nationalist Belarussian symbol) and European Union flags. These elections differ fromthe 2006 and 2010 presidential elections. One person was arrested and accused of organizing the unlawful event.
Lukashenko took 83.49 percent of the vote, election chief Lidiya Yermoshina said, with his nearest rival Tatiana Korotkevich mustering just 4.42 percent of the ballot. Dissenters have been fired from state-owned companies or dismissed from universities.
“I think the election campaign was civilised, cultured and calm”, said the head of the electoral commission, Lidiya Yermoshina. “We are frozen in this situation, and I don’t see a realistic way out of it”.
Belarus is the least post-Soviet of all the post-Soviet countries: Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, has retained collective farming, Socialist Realism, the KGB, and a generous welfare state to placate the country’s largely elderly, passive population.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev wrote in his congratulatory telegram that Alexander Lukashenko’s victory shows that Belorusian citizens support the current political course aimed at sustainable socio-economic development and growth of welfare and strengthening the country’s position in the world community.
France’s minister for European affairs, Harlem Desir, echoed that, saying Paris also wanted to encourage any opening in Belarus, while also warning that any backsliding on human rights would also mean sanctions being reimposed. The US has not said whether it will lift its sanctions.
None of the three candidates running against Lukashenko in Sunday’s poll represent a serious challenge to his rule and opposition figures have called for a boycott of the election. “We don’t have enough information to choose a leader”.
Lukashenko, accompanied by his youngest son Nikolai, appeared at a polling station in a student’s compound in one of the residential districts of Minsk on Sunday, and said that a possible improvement of relations depends now on the West.
Nina Kozalova, 77, wasn’t falling for the bright lights and free concerts, however.
“Oh, life has become harder, but Lukashenko promises stability and peace”, said 68-year-old Tamara Krylovich after voting in Minsk. “I feel surprised and, to a few extent, angry and annoyed by that”, he said. “However, the situation has changed in comparison with previous presidential elections”, he said.
Advertisement
“Lukashenko is the best president in the world, and we will never let him go!” said Irina, an elderly voter in Bobruisk.
