People in Belarus have started to vote in the presidential election, which is all but certain to extend the rule of Alexander Lukashenko.
The authoritarian leader is expected to win as seventh term as leader in Sunday’s election, extending his 31 years in power in Sunday’s election.
Citizens were pictured heading to the polls in the country’s capital, Minsk. A total of 6.9 million people are registered to cast their ballots before voting ends at 5pm tonight UK time.
Four opposition candidates 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.
Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994.
The 70-year-old took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union, which earned him the nickname “Europe’s Last Dictator”.
Belarus was part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Mr Lukashenko has restored Soviet-style controls on the economy, discouraged use of the Belarusian language in favour of Russian, and pushed for abandoning the country’s red-and-white national flag in favour of one similar to what it used as a Soviet republic.
He also remains a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Throughout his rule, he’s relied on subsidies and political support from Russia, let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and agreed to host some of the country’s tactical nuclear weapons.
Mr Lukashenko’s support for the war in Ukraine has led to the rupture of Belarus’ ties with the US and the European Union.
Both said in the run-up to Sunday’s vote that it could not be free and fair because independent media are banned in Belarus and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad.
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 preventing 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.”
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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.
