Election officials said Lukashenko received 86.8% of the vote amid accusations that the vote was neither free nor fair.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has been declared the winner of a disputed presidential election, securing a straight seventh term, according to the country’s election body.
Lukashenko, whose four opponents on the ballot were loyal to him and welcomed his 30-year rule, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results published by the Central Election Commission on its official telegram account on Monday.
“You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus, we have elected a president,” Igor Karpenko, head of the commission, said at a press conference.
Election officials said turnout for Sunday’s vote was 85.7%, with about 6.9 million people eligible to vote.
The Belarusian leader has won every presidential election since 1994, in polls that his opponents, Western governments and rights groups have dismissed as a “sham.”
‘Convince victory’
But Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko, saying the election showed he had the “indisputable” support of the people.
“Your convincing victory in the elections clearly testifies to your great political authority and the undoubted support of the population for the state policy that Belarus is,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement.
“You are always welcome and a dear guest on Russian soil. As agreed, I look forward to seeing you soon in Moscow. »
The war in Ukraine has tied Lukashenko more closely than ever to Putin, and Russian tactical nuclear weapons are now deployed in Belarus.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping also congratulated Lukashenko, Beijing state media reported.
“Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to Lukashenko on his re-election as president of Belarus,” state news agency Xinhua said.
‘No choice’
Other politicians, particularly those in Europe, said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media were banned in the country and all key opposition figures had been jailed or coerced. to request exile abroad.
“The people of Belarus had no choice. This is a bitter day for all those who aspire to freedom and democracy,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X.
“More than 1,200 people in Belarus remain innocently imprisoned simply because they had the courage to speak out.”
The country’s last presidential election in 2020 ended in nationwide protests, unprecedented in the history of the country of nine million people. The opposition and Western nations have accused Lukashenko of rigging the election and imposing sanctions.
In response, his government launched a sweeping crackdown, leaving more than 1,000 people imprisoned, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center.
Asked about his opponents’ imprisonment, Lukashenko told a news conference on Sunday that they had chosen their own fate.
“Some chose prison, some chose exile, as you say. We have not expelled anyone from the country,” he told a press conference that lasted more than four hours.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told the Reuters news agency that Lukashenko had engineered his re-election as part of a “ritual for dictators.”
