Belarus, ruled since 1994 by authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, one of Moscow's main allies, will hold presidential elections at the end of January next year, AFP reported.
„The presidential elections in the Republic of Belarus will be held on January 26, 2025”, the Central Election Commission announced in “Telegram”.
The leader of the opposition in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovska, reacted quickly to the announcement, expressing in “Ex“ opinion that this would be “imitation“ in elections “without a real electoral process” and will be held “in an atmosphere of terror”.
„Neither alternate candidates nor observers will be admitted. We call on everyone in Belarus and the international community to reject this farce," she added.
The previous presidential election in 2020 saw unprecedented protests against Lukashenko's victory, which the opposition said was rigged. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Minsk and other cities, but their protests were crushed by force, and many of the protesters fled abroad, AFP notes.
According to the human rights organization "Vyasna" 1,300 people were "unjustly imprisoned" because they openly opposed the authorities or in other cases with a political connotation.
Tikhanovska found refuge abroad and there is no news of her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was imprisoned for his opposition to Lukashenko, the agency said.
Belarus is a close ally of Moscow, but did not become directly involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022. However, the country ceded its territory to the Russian military for the initial offensive and, according to Kiev, allowed it to use its airfields to bomb Ukraine.