Lukashenko Wins a Landslide in Belarusian Presidential Election

Preliminary results on Monday showed that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has extended his 31-year rule by securing a landslide victory in a presidential election that the West described as “unfair.”

Russian media reported that Igor Karpenko, head of the Central Election Commission of Belarus, said at a press conference this morning: “You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus. We have elected a president,” according to Reuters.

Results posted on the Central Election Commission’s website and Telegram app indicated that Lukashenko won 86.8% of the votes.

The United States and the European Union had stated before the voting that the elections could not be free and fair because independent media is banned in Belarus, and key opposition figures had either been imprisoned or forced to leave the country.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on the platform “X” (formerly Twitter): “The people of Belarus had no choice. It’s a bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy.”

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, defended imprisoning some opposition figures.

In a press conference that lasted more than four hours and twenty minutes, he said: “Some chose prison, others chose to live abroad. We didn’t expel anyone from the country.”

He added that he hadn’t prevented anyone from expressing their opinion in Belarus, but imprisonment was the fate of “those who said more than they should have, and frankly, those who broke the law.”

Lukashenko dismissed the criticism as meaningless and said he didn’t care about Western recognition of the elections.