Belarus’s 26 January election extended dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s 40-plus-year tenure. The election was non-competitive and took place amid a sustained crackdown imposed in reaction to mass protests following the previous vote in 2020, in which Lukashenko committed electoral fraud to stay in power. The level of repression is such that this time there was little opposition and no protests, and anyone who might have posed a credible threat is either in jail or in exile. Belarus has forged closer ties with Russia during the crackdown, including military cooperation. Democratic states should insist on human rights guarantees if there is to be any thaw.

To no one’s surprise, Alexander Lukashenko will soon begin his seventh term as president of Belarus. The official result of the 26 January election gave him 86.8 per cent of the vote. Voting took place in a climate of fear and following minimal campaigning. Only token opposition candidates were allowed to stand, and most of them came out in support of Lukashenko. Anyone who might have made a credible attempt to challenge him is in jail or in exile.

No repeat of 2020

In office since 1994 as the first and so far only president of independent Belarus, Lukashenko is by far Europe’s longest-serving head of state. The 1994 vote that brought the former Soviet official to power was the country’s only legitimate election. Each since has been designed to favour Lukashenko, and he’s won the last five with over 80 per cent of the reported vote.

He only faced a serious threat in 2020, when an outsider candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was mistakenly seen as no danger and able to run a campaign that captured the popular imagination. Lukashenko’s response was to arrest opponents, repress protests, restrict the internet, deny access for electoral observers and then blatantly steal the election.

When people took to the street in mass protests against the electoral fraud that had happened in plain sight, Belarus seemed on the brink of a democratic revolution. But Lukashenko’s government launched a brutal defence, using security forces to violently attack protesters and arresting over a thousand people. It dissolved opposition political parties and raided and shut down civil society organisations: over a thousand have been forcibly liquidated since 2020, often after the authorities designated them as ‘extremist’.

Lukashenko’s regime has gone after those forced into exile, kidnapping and allegedly killing Belarusians who’ve continued to campaign for democracy and human rights from abroad. Belarus is among the 10 states most engaged in transnational repression. In 2023, the authorities introduced a requirement that people must return to Belarus to renew their passports, in an apparent attempt to force them back to detain them. They’ve also deprived the estimated 300,000 people who’ve fled since 2020 of their ability to vote.

By embracing repression, Lukashenko made a choice to abandon his previous policy of balancing between the European Union (EU) and Russia. When the EU imposed sanctions in response to the 2020 election fraud, Russia offered a package of loans. Closer relations followed. In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale assault on Ukraine, some of its forces entered Ukraine from Belarus, where they’d conveniently been holding what were described as military drills.

Shortly after Russia began its full-scale invasion, a constitutional referendum held in Belarus, marked by the same lack of democracy as its elections, increased presidential powers and formally ended the country’s neutrality and non-nuclear status. Belarus and Russia also expanded their joint military training. In December 2024, the two states signed a security treaty allowing the use of Russian nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Belarus, and Lukashenko confirmed that the country hosts dozens of Russian nuclear warheads.

Belarus has also been accused of instrumentalising migrants to try to destabilise neighbouring countries. In 2021, it relaxed its visa rules for people from Middle Eastern and North African countries and encouraged flights to Belarus. Thousands arrived and were taken to the borders with Lithuania and Poland, where they were left to try to cross them in desperate conditions, freezing and without essentials, often stranded in no man’s land and subjected to violence by security forces on both sides. Migrants were unwitting pawns in a game played by Lukashenko to strike back at his neighbours, while the civil society that tried to help them was criminalised. Attempted crossings and human rights violations have continued since.

Renewed crackdown

Just to be on the safe side, Lukashenko launched another crackdown in the months leading up to the election. The intent was clearly to ensure there’d be no repeat of the expression of opposition and protests of 2020.

Starting in July 2024, Lukashenko pardoned around 250 political prisoners, releasing them from jail. His likely aim was to soften international criticism in the run-up to the vote. But these weren’t the high-profile prisoners serving long sentences, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a founder of the Viasna Human Rights Centre, who received a 10-year sentence in 2023, joining several from his organisation behind bars, or protest leader Maria Kolesnikova, sentenced to 11 years in 2021. Those pardoned also had to publicly acknowledge their guilt and repent.

In any case, the freed jail spaces were quickly filled, with over a hundred friends and relatives of political prisoners being detained in a move surely designed to break networks of solidarity and support between the loved ones of those imprisoned. In February 2024, authorities detained at least 12 lawyers who’d defended political prisoners. In December, they arrested seven journalists from an independent regional website, accusing them of ‘supporting extremist activities’. Belarus has the world’s fourth highest number of jailed journalists.

People have been detained merely for following Telegram channels deemed ‘extremist’ or making comments on social media. Over 1,700 people reportedly faced charges for political activities in 2024. Prison conditions are harsh. People may be forced to do hard labour, kept in solitary confinement, sent to freezing punishment cells, denied access to their families and have medical care withheld.

On election day, Lukashenko’s dictatorial style was on full display. He held a press conference where he promised to ‘deal with’ opposition activists in exile and said they were endangering their families in Belarus, adding that some opponents ‘chose’ to go to prison by speaking out. He also didn’t rule out the prospect of running for an eighth term in 2030.

Voices from the frontline

Natallia Satsunkevich is a human rights defender and interim board member of the Viasna Human Rights Centre. Viasna was declared an ‘extremist organisation’ in 2023 and now works from exile.

 

One of the regime’s main tools is the criminalisation of independent organisations and media. Viasna, for example, has been declared an ‘extremist formation’. This means anyone who interacts with us – whether by sharing information, giving an interview or offering support – risks being arrested and prosecuted. This level of repression has created a climate of fear where people are too afraid to speak out about human rights abuses or take part in activism.

There has also been an increase in arrests, house searches and interrogations. Many of those arrested during the 2020 protests are still in prison and new arrests are taking place almost every day. The political opposition inside the country has been effectively silenced, with most of its leaders imprisoned or driven into exile. It’s clear that Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime is determined to hold onto power at all costs.

The opposition has been completely sidelined. Many of its leaders are either in prison or have fled the country. Alternative candidates aren’t allowed to run, and any form of opposition campaigning is banned. The state-controlled media is completely one-sided, constantly pushing the narrative that Lukashenko has overwhelming public support, while silencing anyone who disagrees.

For Belarus to move towards democracy, the first step would be to release all political prisoners. Almost 1,300 people, including opposition leaders, activists and journalists, are currently behind bars on politically motivated charges. They should be allowed to participate in the political process.

 

This an edited extract of our conversation with Natallia. Read the full interview here.

Time for change

Lukashenko only promises more of the same: continuing autocracy and closed civic space. For generations of Belarusians who’ve known nothing but his rule, and with opposition voices so ruthlessly suppressed, it may be hard to imagine anything else. The possibilities opened up by the 2020 protests have been ruthlessly shut down. Lukashenko may also feel emboldened by political shifts in the global north that have seen strongarm right-wing populist and nationalist politicians take power or gain influence.

But the wheels of history will keep turning, and the 70-year-old dictator won’t last forever. Some kind of cessation of hostilities in Ukraine may well come this year, forcing Lukashenko to make friends beyond Vladimir Putin. If Russia winds down its booming war economy, the ensuing economic shock in Belarus, which is largely dependent on Russia, could trigger public anger.

Meanwhile, potentially increased scrutiny could come from the International Criminal Court: in September 2024, the government of Lithuania, home to many Belarusian exiles, requested an investigation into crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Belarusian authorities. If more states back this move and it gains momentum, Lukashenko could find himself in an uncomfortable spotlight. States could also intensify sanctions: Canada and the UK have already done so following the election.

If Belarus attempts to reengage with them, the democratic states to its west should insist that no thaw in relations is possible without tangible progress on human rights. This should start with the release of all political prisoners, guarantees for the safety of exiled activists and a reversal of attacks on civic space.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • Civil society and donors should work to support Belarusian activists, civil society organisations and media in exile.
  • States should back the call for an International Criminal Court investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Belarus.
  • States on both sides of the borders between Belarus, Lithuania and Poland should commit to respecting the human rights of people trying to enter the European Union.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

Cover photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images