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President Alexander G. Lukashenko, a best close friend of Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin, has shown his willingness to reach the West. It is almost certain that he will win Sunday’s elections.
By Nataliya Vasilyeva
When Alexander G. Lukashenko ran for the last time for President of Belarus, the former Soviet Republic he directed since 1994, faced an unusual phenomenon: the rival applicants who sought to win. His eventual victory in those 2020 elections, widely considered fraudulent, caused national protests, a brutal repression backed by Russian and then Western sanctions.
This time, in a presidential election set for Sunday, Mr. Lukashenko’s all-but-certain victory — his seventh in a row — is likely to be smoother. He has allowed four other, state-approved candidates to run, but they compete only in showering praise on him. Candidates who could pose a threat to his rule have all been jailed or forced into exile. He controls the media and all levers of power in his country.
“There is no genuine choice — all we have is this farcical facade of the candidates who all come from pro-government parties,” said Katia Glod, a nonresident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington who is originally from Belarus.
“It’s like now in Russia: there are no candidates who can constitute a select opinion,” he said.
Mr. Lukashenko is so sure of his ability to win another term that the campaign has prevented, saying that he is too busy with responsibilities such as trying a new ax made in Belarus. On Thursday, state media showed him by cutting wood.
Two decades after the United States declared Belarus “the last remaining true dictatorship in the center of Europe,” Lukashenko is determined to hold elections in 2020 and show his country – and Russia – that his grip is firm.
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