Parliamentary and local elections are being held in Belarus on 25 February 2024. They are the first elections in Belarus since the rigged presidential election of 2020. The 25 February elections are even more rigged.
In 2020 Alexander Lukashenko was elected to his sixth term of office as President of Belarus. Every election, apart from his first in 1994, has been neither free nor fair.
In the run-up to the 2020 election most of Lukashenko’s potential challengers were either ruled ineligible to stand or arrested and detained on trumped-up charges. Street and social media protests by opposition activists, journalists and bloggers saw around 1,300 people detained in the run-up to the election.
Lukashenko denounced the protests as a plot by America and/or NATO to destabilise the country.
In the evening of election day Lukashenko was declared winner. He had supposedly won over 80% of the vote, and Tsikhanouskaya, his only serious opponent, a mere 10%. The manifestly implausible election result, buttressed by multiple reports of election irregularities and ballot rigging, triggered the biggest protests in the history of Belarus.
Police used truncheons, water cannons, stun grenades, and mass detentions of some 35,000 people to quell the protests. By late 2021 the Belarusian authorities had succeeded in driving the opposition off the streets.
A new wave of repression began in early 2022, partly in response to opposition to Lukashenko’s support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and partly in response to opposition to a referendum on constitutional changes designed to cement – even further – Lukashenko’s grip on power.
Over 800 anti-war protestors were arrested in February alone, the month in which Putin launched his invasion. Heavy prison sentences were imposed on the "Railway Partisans", accused of sabotaging rail lines to hold up Russian troops ordered to invade Ukraine from the north.
The maximum penalty for preparing or committing acts of terrorism – a catch-all charge used by the regime not just against the "Railway Partisans" but against many dissident activists in general – was increased from 20 years imprisonment to the death penalty.
The referendum on constitutional changes, held the same month as Putin’s invasion, was a sham, and its result a foregone conclusion.
Campaigning for a No vote was not permitted. Workers were threatened with dismissal if they failed to vote, in line with opposition calls for a boycott. And ‘monitoring’ of the referendum was conducted virtually solely by observers from Russia and other countries allied with Putin.
Five months later, in July, all independent trade unions and trade union federations in Belarus were banned by the Supreme Court, leaving the Lukashenko-loyal Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FPB) as the sole nominal "trade union" body.
The independent trade unions had long been a target for suppression by Lukashenko.
They had been active in the campaigning of 2020/21, they had exposed the role played by the pro-Lukashenko and pro-employer FPB in workplaces, and they had issued anti-war statements condemning Lukashenko for allowing Putin to use Belarus as a base for his invasion of Ukraine.
According to the human rights organisation Freedom House, Belarus currently scores just two out of 40 for political rights, and six out of 60 for civil liberties:
“Belarus is an authoritarian state in which elections are openly rigged and civil liberties are severely restricted. Since 2020 security forces have violently assaulted and arbitrarily detained journalists and ordinary citizens who challenge the regime. The judiciary and other institutions lack independence.”
According to Salidarnast, an organisation set up by exiled trade union activists and leaders:
“For almost three decades Belarus has been a world champion in violating fundamental human rights, including the rights of workers for freedom of association. Belarus is listed among the ten worst countries for workers.”
The government has absolute control over the mainstream media and owns the country’s only internet provider. Authorities routinely threaten, harass, arrest, detain and imprison critics of Lukashenko’s rule. Freedom of assembly and freedom of association are so restricted as to be non-existent.
In recent years 971 organisations – human rights groups, lawyers’ associations, independent media, and even amateur theatres – have been outlawed. The most ‘dangerous’ organisations have been deemed "extremist" and their members subject to retroactive prison sentences. Nearly 200 groups and 4,000 individuals are classed as "extremist".
There are currently around 1,500 political prisoners in Belarus. Torture in police stations and prisons is widespread, and forced labour by convicted prisoners even more so. The level of state repression has driven many of Lukashenko’s opponents into exile.
All of this makes the outcome of Sunday’s elections a foregone conclusion. But Lukashenko is taking no chances.
In the course of last year the major opposition parties were banned: the Belarusian Popular Front Party, the Conservative Christian Party, the Green Party, the Republican Party, the Social Democratic Party of People's Accord, the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, and United Civil Party.
In preparation for the elections the Belarusian authorities have carried out a "re-registration" of political parties. Of the fifteen parties active in early 2023, only four have been re-registered. All four – including the Belarusian Communist Party – are pro-government.
Repression has increased in the run-up the elections. In January Salidarnast reported a wave of mass detentions by law enforcement agencies, in which about 200 people were detained across the country. According to Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Kubrakov: “We have already identified and prosecuted those who tried to provoke and insult our citizens.”
Kubrakov has also promised a mass mobilisation of security forces for the election day itself, in order to ensure no repeat of the protests which ‘marred’ the 2020 election:
“We have analysed situations that occurred at polling stations in Belarus in 2020. We have developed an algorithm of actions in such cases. We have shown that the police of Minsk and the entire country are ready to maintain public order and citizens’ safety.
"From 19 February the police will be put on a high alert duty. The polling stations will be protected by the law enforcement personnel. Order and safety will be ensured in the entire country. In the border areas we will involve special units of internal troops and police. We are ready to respond to all possible provocations.”
Loopholes which the opposition was able to exploit in the 2020 election have been shut down.
Photographing ballot papers is now illegal. Voting booths are open, not private. The turnout threshold for elections has been scrapped. There will be no voting abroad, i.e. in Belarusian Embassies. (In 2020 Tsikhanouskaya came out on top in virtually all votes in Belarusian Embassies.)
Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Belarus is a member, will not be allowed to monitor the elections. According to the Central Election Commission: “Belarus holds the election for itself first and foremost. It will take place under full control of the authorities and without destructive influences.”
But there will be some election observers present on the day – from Russia and other members of the generally pro-Putin Commonwealth of Independent States. Belarus has a reciprocal arrangement with Russia: They "observe" each other’s (sham) elections.
In previous parliamentary elections Belarusian independent media were able to predict who would be elected with 96% accuracy. Were it not for the fact that there are no longer any independent media, 100% accuracy could easily be achieved on this occasion. §