Belarusians vote in closely controlled elections as opposition calls for boycott

2024-02-25 06:48:02

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarusians were voting Sunday in tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections designed to consolidate the rule of the country’s authoritarian leader. An opposition leader called for a boycott of what she described as a “senseless farce.”

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years, accuses the West of trying to use the election to undermine his government and “destabilize” the country of 9.5 million people.

Most of the candidates belong to the four registered parties: Belaya Rus, the Communist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Labor and Justice Party. All of these parties support Lukashenko’s policies. Last year, another dozen parties were rejected for registration.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in neighboring Lithuania following challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, urged voters to boycott the referendum.

“There are no people on the ballot offering real change because the regime has only allowed comfortable puppets to participate,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video message. “We call to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore these elections without options.”

These were the first elections in Belarus since the disputed 2020 vote that gave Lukashenko his sixth term in office and sparked unprecedented mass protests.

Demonstrations took over the country for months and brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets. More than 35,000 people were arrested. Thousands were beaten in police custody and hundreds of independent media and non-governmental organizations were closed and outlawed.

Lukashenko has relied on subsidies and political support from his main ally, Russia, to survive the protests. In February 2022 he allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops to Ukraine.

The elections took place under constant repression of dissent. More than 1,400 political prisoners remain behind bars, including opposition party leaders and renowned human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Prize in 2022.

The opposition says the early voting that began Tuesday was highly vulnerable to manipulation, as the polls spent five days unprotected. Election officials said nearly a quarter of the country’s voters voted in the first three days of early voting.

The Viasna Human Rights Center said students, soldiers, teachers and other officials had been forced to vote in advance.

“The authorities use all available means to guarantee the results they need, from broadcasting propaganda on television to forcing voters to vote early,” said Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka. “Stops, arrests and searches are occurring during voting.”

Speaking during a meeting Tuesday with security force commanders, Lukashenko said without presenting evidence that Western countries were considering a plan to stage a coup in Belarus or try to seize power by force. He ordered police to strengthen armed patrols across the country, declaring that “it is the most important element of ensuring law and order.”

After the vote, Belarus will form a new body, the All Belarus People’s Congress, with 1,200 seats and including high-level officials, local legislators, trade unionists, pro-government activists and others. He will have broad powers, such as the ability to consider constitutional amendments, as well as appoint election officials and judges.

For the first time, Minsk refused to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the vote. Belarus is a member of the OSCE, a transatlantic security and rights group, and for decades its international observers were the only ones in the Belarusian elections.

Since 1995, the OSCE has not considered any vote in Belarus to be free and fair.

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