Belarus’s
Authoritarian leaders are set to consolidate their dictatorship through tightly controlled local and parliamentary elections, a report in Tallinn, Estonia, said. This happens when the opposition has sought a boycott of the elections. Voting did not take place till Sunday. It was a “senseless farce”.
On Sunday, President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for nearly 30 years, announced he will run for re-election in 2019. He claimed that Western countries were plotting to “destabilize” his country, which has a population of 9.5 million, by using the vote.
The majority of candidates from Belaya Russa, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Labor and Justice Party are officially registered political parties. All organizations agree with Lukashenko’s policy. About twelve other parties were not registered last year.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who opposed Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, is currently living in exile in Lithuania, so she told voters she would not vote in the election.
“The regime has allowed only those puppets that are convenient for it to participate,” according to the video statement released by Tsikhanouskaya, adding that none of the candidates on the ballot will now bring real change. We are demanding an end to this failed program and stop ignoring this election because it is the only option.”
This will be the first general elections in Belarus after the disputed elections in 2020. This elected Lukashenko to a sixth term and gave a record boost to his performance. Elections will be held on Sunday.
Thousands of people participated in demonstrations across the country for several months. About 35,000 people were arrested. Police jailed thousands of people, along with suppressing hundreds of non-profit organizations and independent media sites.
To protect Lukashenko from protests, the Russian Federation has given him political and economic subsidies. With the permission of the Belarusian government, Moscow sent troops to Ukraine through Belarusian territory in February 2022.
The opposition is continuously attacking during the elections. He is one of more than 1,400 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights lawyer Ales Bielitsky.
The opposition says early voting, which began on Tuesday, creates conditions that are conducive to vote manipulation as ballot boxes are left unused for up to five days.
As election officials reported, more than forty per cent of eligible voters participated and cast their votes in the early voting session that ran from Tuesday to Saturday. A total of 65.4% votes were cast till 4 pm. The Belarusian Central Election Commission said the number of votes cast on Sunday reached the minimum of fifty per cent set by Belarusian law.
Vijayana Human Rights Center says civilians, soldiers, teachers, government employees and students were forced to vote early. The organization has given this information.
Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka said that the authorities are using every possible technique to achieve their goal. This includes television campaigning and pressuring voters to register early. People are detained, arrested and searched during voting.”
On Tuesday, Lukashenko falsely alleged that Western countries were plotting to use force or force to topple his administration. The allegation was made in a meeting with senior law enforcement officials of Belarus. She said “This is the most important element of ensuring law and order” and ordered increased armed patrols of police forces across Belarus.
After the vote, a new institution in Belarus, the All-Belarus Popular Assembly, will be created. There will be 1,200 people, including local MPs, representatives of unions, government support staff and high-ranking officials. It will have the right to nominate judges and election officials and consider making changes to the Constitution, among many other powers.
Lukashenko was believed to be considering leading the new institution after leaving office a few years ago; However, he announced on Sunday that he will run for president next year because his calculations have changed.
I want to run, please tell my opponents. There is a clear relationship between the seriousness of problems and the extent to which they trouble our society. “The sooner he runs in the elections, the more pressure he will put on you, on me and society,” the leader of the Strongman movement told reporters while voting in the Belarusian capital, state media reported. It said.
Voters were explicitly prohibited from taking photographs of their ballot papers at polling places. Curtains were also removed from the booths. Activists asked voters to take photographs of their ballots to prevent authorities from giving Lukashenko an advantage in the 2020 elections.
One man was arrested during the exercise, run by the Interior Ministry and shown on Belarusian state television. Other people who formed false queues outside the polling place were also arrested.
Belarus was the first country to reject the offer to send OSCE monitors to monitor the voting process. Even before this, Belarus had rejected such an invitation. The Organization for Defense and Cooperation (OASCIE), a leading transatlantic organization that focuses on rights and security, has for many years been the only observer from outside the country participating in the Belarusian elections.
Free and fair elections recognized by the OSCE have not been held in Belarus since 1995.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the country was not allowed a “comprehensive assessment by the international body” because it decided to obstruct the agency’s monitors.
“People who voice dissent or stand up for the human rights of others are subject to investigation, harassment, and often prosecution,” it said in a release. The organization said the human rights situation in Belarus was worsening. Is.
Many voters also raised that the administration is not even trying to vote democratically.
Artyom Shreibman, a non-resident researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the government could use the next presidential election as an opportunity to test its systems after the last election saw widespread protests and surprise results. This is a response to the remarkable demonstrations that took place during the last election. In such a situation, when the opposition and other parties are barred from participating in the election campaign, Parliament will be deprived of any important debate. The protest should be completely erased from the public’s collective memory.
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