Lukashenko steals another election in Belarus.
Is this the last "election" before Belarus is "annexed" by muscovy?
Spoiler: Lukashenko has a long history of manipulating elections and throwing critics in jail. During the last “presidential elections” in 2020, it was so obvious that he cheated that people took to the streets in masses. The demonstrations were brutally crushed by both Belarusian police and police from muscovy provided by the little fascist in chief in the kremlin.
Today’s farcical elections may be the last that are held in Belarus for a long time. Lukashenko may soon step down and hand over the country to the little fascist in the kremlin.
As we all know, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya won the 2020 elections but was forced to flee to Lithuania. This year’s election will be, as she put it, a sham. There are of course some people who pretend to also be candidates in the election. One of these marionettes is the leader of the communist party. His slogan is: "Not instead of, but together with Lukashenko!"
After the Belarus presidential “elections” in 2020, people took to the streets and protested against Lukashenko’s obvious manipulations.
Demonstrations in Minsk 2020 against Lukashenko’s fraudulent election.
Source: Someone's twitter account. Apologies for stealing it but I can't remember who owns the account.
Lukashenko responded by unleashing his thugs on men, women and children. Human rights organisations documented and protested to no avail. I wrote about this in a post at the time.
The response from the regime was brutal. Illegal arrests and detainments in overcrowded cells where people were savagely attacked by the riot police. The brutality has been testified by many for instance here, here, here, and here.
And human rights organisations all over the world have been documented this. Here are a few: Human rights watch, Reporters without borders, Civil rights defenders, Belarusian human rights organisations, and Amnesty International.
All this evidence and all these testimonies boil down to one thing. Lukashenka doesn’t give a rat’s arse about human rights. He doesn’t want his people to enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of the media, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. The whole state machinery is designed to prevent people from exercising their fundamental rights. The police forces, the judiciary, the media are his prolonged arms needed to control the people.
Belarus is a prison
I’m guessing but I don’ think there will be mass demonstration this year. The oppression and persectutions of the regime’s opponents in Belarus have become even worse than before. In case you want to see updated assessments of the situation in Belarus, Human Rights Watch’s is here,
Belarusian authorities continue their “purge” of independent voices prosecuting and harassing human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians, protesters, and activists. Hundreds remain behind bars on politically motivated charges and face ill-treatment in detention. No rights organization is able to operate legally in Belarus.
Belarusian authorities have prosecuted critics of Russia’s war in Ukraine and brutally dispersed anti-war protests, while allowing Russian forces to use Belarus territory to support their invasion of Ukraine since February 24, 2022.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe and Central Asia to use the death penalty and expanded the crimes to which it can be imposed in 2022
and Amnesty International’s is here.
The rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly remained severely curtailed. Religious minorities faced discrimination. The justice system was abused to suppress dissent. Torture and other ill-treatment were endemic and impunity prevailed. Refugees and migrants suffered abuses at the hands of the authorities. Death sentences continued to be imposed.
Graphing Lukashenko’s illegal regime.
The department of political science at the University of Gothenburg runs the renowned project Varieties of Democracy in which the state of democracy is monitored across the world. They publish a Democracy Report each year where the developments in different countries and regions are analysed and countries are categorised as democracies or autocracies. The web site of Varieties of Democracy also has a web site with graphing tools allowing for illustration of different aspects of the state of democracy in different countries. Below are some graphs showing the situation for Belarus.
No free and fair elections in Belarus.
Of all the countries where elections are held or pretended to be held, the Belarusian elections are the least free and fair according to Varieties of Democracy.
Lukashenko’s view on elections.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicator gauges whether the process before, during and after the election day is free and fair. The indicator ranges from 0 to 4 where 0 indicates that the elections were fundamentally flawed and the official results had little if anything to do with the 'will of the people' and 4 the opposite.
Lukashenko is a butcher.
Lukashenko’s brutality can be illustrated in a graph. Varieties of Democracy also monitors how different regimes clamp down on demonstrations. The indicators Freedom from torture and Freedom from political killings below illustrate the response of the Lukashenko’s regime. He has been killing and torturing opponents since 1994 when he came to power.
Lukashenko the butcher.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicators range from 0 to 4 where 0 indicates that freedom from torture and freedeom from political killings are not respected by the regime.
Human rights have moved out of Belarus.
Lukashenko’s regime has been regarded as a dictatorship for a long time, but as the word has it, there are degrees also in hell. After the demonstrations following the fraudulent elections in 2020, the regime made sure that it is very dangerous to speak and even think freely in Belarus.
Belarus is a prison.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicator Government censorship effort - mediaranges from 0 to 4 where 0 indicates that attempts to censor are direct and routine. The indicator Civil liberties index ranges from 0 to 1 where 0 indicates that absence of physical violence committed by government agents and the absence of constraints of private liberties and political liberties by the government are ignored.