Belarussian leader Lukashenka reduced his total votes in the ‘elections’ to not surpass the ‘big brother’

The two dictators, Lukashenka and Putin, go way back. Alyaksandr Lukashenka with Vladimir Putin during a news conference in 2002. Image by Presidential Press and Information Office, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka “won” the recent elections in Belarus with 86.82 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission reported on January 27, 2025. The turnout, as stated, exceeded 85.7 percent.

This is Lukashenka's seventh term; he has ruled Belarus for more than 30 years. In the neighboring European Union, however, he is not recognized as a legitimate president.

High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas and Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos issued a statement about elections in Belarus:

Today’s sham election in Belarus has been neither free, nor fair. The people of Belarus deserve a real say in who governs their country. The relentless and unprecedented repression of human rights, restrictions to political participation and access to independent media in Belarus, have deprived the electoral process of any legitimacy.

As an independent Belarusian media Zerkalo writes, according to political science experts, the most noticeable adjustment in the election results done by the Central Election Commission in Belarus this year, was reducing Lukashenka's results. According to the exit poll, he had 87.6 percent, and according to the Central Election Commission, 86.8 percent of the vote.

Experts, according to opposition media outlet Belsat, which works from Poland, have stated that the politician did not dare to “beat” the result of Vladimir Putin, who, according to the Central Election Commission there, received 87.28 percent of the votes in the elections last year, which also became a record in Russia.

[Alexander] Lukashenko’s record result is compensation for the psychological trauma of 2020, when, according to an unofficial alternative count, he was surpassed thanks to a powerful protest vote by then housewife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

This is how political observer of the Pozirk agency Alexander Klaskovsky commented on the result of the “elections.”

“He still did not dare to surpass his ‘big brother’, but came close to his result: Vladimir Putin, according to the official version, gained 87.28% in last year’s elections,” notes Klaskovsky.

In Belarus, there were no organized protests during the so-called elections due to severe selective repressions that the government has been conducting, especially after the protests during elections 2020.  However, there were several small scale protest actions abroad.

The security forces of Belarus allegedly identified 365 participants in protests abroad during the elections on January 26, the Investigative Committee of Belarus claims. People are being threatened with the confiscation of their property and that of their relatives.

“Despite the increased secrecy measures, 365 people who took part in gatherings in different cities have been identified out of the total number of participants (581 people). Among them: Wroclaw – 11, Warsaw – 203, Bialystok – 18, Vilnius – 29, New York – 39, Prague – 11 and others,” says Sergei Kabakovich, head of the information and public relations department of the central office of the Investigative Committee of Belarus.

Those who are noticed by the security forces are promised criminal cases and property confiscation.

“They are checking whether they have property and real estate on the territory of Belarus, including those registered to other people,” says Kabakovich.

Earlier, Lukashenka threatened those who were going to take part in protests abroad, and noted that their relatives and friends live in Belarus “You will simply set these people up,” he said.

Politically motivated repressions in Belarus continue at a large scale. Human rights center Vyasna counts 1245 political prisoners in the country today.

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