Janice R. Andrews
Belarus’ longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko will face only government-approved challengers in the upcoming presidential election scheduled for January. The country’s election commission has approved seven loyalist candidates to begin collecting signatures, while excluding opposition voices, further solidifying Lukashenko’s control over the electoral process.
Lukashenko, who has held power for over three decades, is seeking his seventh term amid ongoing international criticism. His 2020 re-election was widely condemned as fraudulent, triggering mass protests and a harsh government crackdown. Over 65,000 protesters, including opposition leaders, were detained in the aftermath, and human rights organizations report that around 1,300 political prisoners remain jailed under restrictive conditions.
Of the seven permitted candidates, only loyalists were approved, including Sergei Syrankov of the Communist Party, Oleg Gaidukevich of the Liberal Democratic Party, and former Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemоdanova. Each candidate must gather at least 100,000 signatures by December 6 to qualify for the ballot. Lukashenko’s comments suggest these candidates are chosen more to reinforce his position than to provide real competition. “They are alternative candidates… to safeguard the incumbent,” he said.
Belarus’ exiled opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, dismissed the process as a sham. “This is not an election but an imitation,” she stated, highlighting the ongoing repression of dissenting voices. In February, Belarus further isolated its electoral process by not inviting Western observers to monitor parliamentary and local elections—marking the first such decision since its independence in 1991.
The absence of independent oversight and opposition candidates casts doubt on the legitimacy of the upcoming election, reinforcing international concerns about democracy and human rights in Belarus.
