Polls close in Belarus - with Alexander Lukashenko set to extend 30-year presidential rule
26 January 2025, 10:56 | Updated: 26 January 2025, 18:45
Alexander Lukashenko is expected to extend his 31-year rule of Belarus with 87.6% of the vote in Sunday's presidential election, according to an exit poll.
Officials said turnout was 81.5% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.
Four opposition candidates also appear on ballots, but all are loyal to Mr Lukashenko and have praised his rule.
Yesterday Sergei Syrankov, head of the Community Party of Belarus, told Sky News' Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett that Mr Lukashenko is fondly referred to as Bat'ka, meaning father.
Many of the actual opponents to the incumbent president are either in prison or have been exiled abroad as a result of a crackdown on dissent and free speech.
It comes after mass protests after the election in 2020 threatened his claim to the presidency as Western governments backed the opposition's assertion that he falsified the results and stole victory from its candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
The demonstrations went on for months and led to the arrest of more than 65,000 people, many of whom are still in prison.
Ms Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure, told The Associated Press that Sunday's election was "a senseless farce, a Lukashenko ritual".
In preparation for this year's election, polling stations have removed the curtains covering ballot boxes, and voters are forbidden from photographing their ballots - a response to the opposition's call in 2020 for voters to take pictures to make it more difficult for authorities to rig the vote.
Police have also conducted large-scale drills before the election as a way to prepare for dispersing a protest.
Speaking at a press conference as he cast his own vote on Sunday, Mr Lukashenko said some of his political opponents had "chosen" to go to prison, adding that no one was prevented from speaking out in the country.
"We didn't kick anyone out of the country," he said, adding: "[But prison was] for people who opened their mouths too wide, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law."
The president has repeatedly claimed that he wasn't clinging to power at the last election and would "quietly and calmly hand it over to the new generation".
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Since July last year, he has also pardoned more than 250 people described as political prisoners by activists.
Artyom Shraybman, a Belarus expert with the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Centre, told Reuters that Mr Lukashenko plans to use the pardons and his election win to try and ease his total dependence on Russia and start a conversation with the West about easing sanctions.
(c) Sky News 2025: Polls close in Belarus - with Alexander Lukashenko set to extend 30-year presidential rule