Belarusians vote in a tightly controlled election as the opposition calls for its boycott

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko presents flowers to an election commission official ahead of voting at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb. 25, 2024. (Belarusian Presidential Press Service via AP)
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Updated 26 February 2024
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Belarusians vote in a tightly controlled election as the opposition calls for its boycott

  • Sunday’s balloting is the first in Belarus since the contentious 2020 vote that handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office
  • Belarus' opposition has called for a boycott of the election, which took place amid a relentless crackdown on dissent

TALLINN, Estonia: Sunday’s tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections in Belarus are set to cement the hard-line rule of the country’s authoritarian leader, despite a prominent opposition leader’s call for a boycott.

President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for nearly three decades and on Sunday announced that he will run for the presidency again next year. He accuses the West of trying to use the vote to undermine his government and “destabilize” the nation of 9.5 million people.

Most candidates belong to the four officially registered parties: Belaya Rus, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Party of Labor and Justice. Those parties all support Lukashenko’s policies. About a dozen other parties were denied registration last year.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in neighboring Lithuania after challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, urged voters to boycott the elections.
“There are no people on the ballot who would offer real changes because the regime only has allowed puppets convenient for it to take part,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement. “We are calling to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice.” Tikhanovskaya’s video address was broadcast in public places throughout Belarus on Saturday after opposition activists were able to gain access to some 2,000 screens used for advertising. Viasna Human Rights Center reported Sunday that a number of employees at the company that owned the screens have been arrested in Minsk.
Sunday’s balloting is the first in Belarus since the contentious 2020 vote that handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office and triggered an unprecedented wave of mass demonstrations.
Protests swept the country for months, bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets. More than 35,000 people were arrested. Thousands were beaten in police custody, and hundreds of independent media outlets and nongovernmental organizations were shut down and outlawed.
Lukashenko has relied on subsidies and political support from his main ally, Russia, to survive the protests. He allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The election takes place amid a relentless crackdown on dissent. Over 1,400 political prisoners remain behind bars, including leaders of opposition parties and renowned human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
The opposition says the early balloting that began Tuesday offers fertile ground for the vote to be manipulated, with ballot boxes unprotected for five days.
Election officials said Sunday that over 40 percent of the voters had cast ballots during early voting from Tuesday to Saturday. As of 9 p.m. local time, turnout was 72.98 percent, meeting the 50 percent threshold needed under Belarusian law in order for the vote to stand, according to the Belarusian Central Election Commission. Turnout in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, was notably lower than in other Belarusian regions, only reaching 61.54 percent. By comparison, the area with the next lowest turnout, the wider Minsk region, recorded 74.20 percent.
The Viasna Human Rights Center said students, soldiers, teachers and other civil servants were forced to participate in early voting.
“Authorities are using all available means to ensure the result they need — from airing TV propaganda to forcing voters to cast ballots early,” said Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka. “Detentions, arrests and searches are taking place during the vote.”
Speaking during Tuesday’s meeting with top Belarusian law enforcement officials, Lukashenko alleged without offering evidence that Western countries were pondering plans to stage a coup in the country or to try to seize power by force. He ordered police to beef up armed patrols across Belarus, declaring that “it’s the most important element of ensuring law and order.”
After the vote, Belarus is set to form a new state body — the 1,200-seat All-Belarus Popular Assembly that will include top officials, local legislators, union members, pro-government activists and others. It will have broad powers, including the authority to consider constitutional amendments and to appoint election officials and judges.
Lukashenko was believed a few years ago to be considering whether to lead the new body after stepping down, but his calculus has apparently changed, and he announced on Sunday that he will run in next year’s presidential election.
“Tell (the opposition) that I will run. And the more difficult the situation, the more actively they will disturb our society ... the more strain they put on you, myself and society, the sooner I will run in these elections,” the strongman leader told reporters as he cast his ballot in the Belarusian capital, according to state media.
For the first time, curtains were removed from voting booths at polling stations, and voters were banned from taking pictures of their ballots. During the 2020 election, activists encouraged voters to photograph their ballots in a bid to prevent authorities from manipulating the vote in Lukashenko’s favor.
Belarusian state TV aired footage of Interior Ministry drills in which police detained a purported offender who was photographing his ballot and others who created an artificial queue outside a polling station.
Belarus for the first time also refused to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the election. Belarus is a member of the OSCE, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group, and its monitors have been the only international observers at Belarusian elections for decades.
Since 1995, not a single election in Belarus has been recognized as free and fair by the OSCE.
The OSCE said the decision not to allow the agency’s monitors deprived the country of a “comprehensive assessment by an international body.”
“The human rights situation in Belarus continues to deteriorate as those who voice dissent or stand up for the human rights of others are subject to investigation, persecution and frequently prosecution,” it said in a statement.
Observers noted that authorities have not even tried to pretend that the vote is democratic.
The election offers the government an opportunity to run a “systems test after massive protests and a serious shock of the last presidential election and see whether it works,” said Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The parliament will be sterile after the opposition and all alternative voices were barred from campaigning. It’s important for authorities to erase any memory of the protests.” In a statement, a US State Department official described the elections as a “sham.”
“The United States condemns the Lukashenko regime’s sham parliamentary and local elections that concluded today in Belarus. The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic,” said spokesman Matthew Miller.
“The United States again calls on the Lukashenko regime to end its crackdown, release all political prisoners, and open dialogue with its political opponents. The Belarusian people deserve better.”


Russian strike on Ukraine’s Odesa kills two, wounds 14

Updated 4 sec ago
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Russian strike on Ukraine’s Odesa kills two, wounds 14

  • Moscow has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Ukraine
  • Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war
KYiV: A Russian drone strike on Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa killed two people and wounded 14, including children, local authorities said on Saturday.
Moscow has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Ukraine and peace talks initiated by the United States to end the three-year conflict have stalled.
“Rescuers pulled the bodies of two people from the rubble who died as a result of a hostile drone strike on a residential building,” Odesa Governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram.
The night-time strike wounded 14 people, Kiper said, adding that “three of them children.”
Separately, authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said one person was killed and three others were wounded in Russian strikes over the past day.
“Russian troops targeted critical and social infrastructure and residential areas in the region,” the Kherson’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram early on Saturday.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Russia’s offensive, which has forced millions from their homes and devastated much of eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war.
The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday its air defense had shot down 31 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Moscow also said it had captured another village in the Donetsk region, which the Kremlin has claimed as part of Russia since late 2022.
Russia has demanded Ukraine cede more land and give up Western military support as a precondition to peace – terms Kyiv says are unacceptable.

Europe bakes in summer’s first heatwave as continent warms

Updated 1 min 1 sec ago
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Europe bakes in summer’s first heatwave as continent warms

MARSEILLES: Sweating Europeans braced on Saturday for the first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes the world’s fastest-warming continent’s thermometers increasingly into the red.
Temperatures are set to rise to 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rome, driving the Eternal City’s many tourists and Catholic pilgrims to the Vatican alike toward the Italian capital’s some 2,500 public fountains for refreshment.
With residents of the southern port city of Marseille expected to have to cope with temperatures flirting with 40C (104F), authorities in France’s second-largest city ordered public swimming pools to be made free of charge to help residents beat the Mediterranean heat.
Two-thirds of Portugal will be on high alert on Sunday for extreme heat and forest fires with 42C (108F) expected in the capital Lisbon, while visitors to — and protesters against — Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos’s Friday wedding in Venice likewise sweltered under the summer sun.
“I try not to think about it, but I drink a lot of water and never stay still, because that’s when you get sunstroke,” Sriane Mina, an Italian student, told AFPTV on Friday in Venice.
Meanwhile Spain, which has in past years seen a series of deadly summer blazes ravaging the Iberian peninsula, is expecting peak temperatures in excess of 40C (104F) across most of the country from Sunday.
Scientists have long warned that humanity’s burning of fossil fuels is heating up the world with disastrous consequences for the environment, with Europe’s ever-hotter and increasingly common blistering summer heatwaves a direct result of that warming.
With peaks of 39C (102F) expected in Naples and Palermo, Sicily has ordered a ban on outdoor work in the hottest hours of the day, as has the Liguria region in northern Italy.
The country’s trade unions are campaigning to extend the measure to other parts of the country.
The heatwave comes hot on the heels of a series of tumbling records for extreme heat, including Europe’s hottest March ever, according to the EU’s Copernicus climate monitor.
As a result of the planet’s warming, extreme weather events including hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves like this weekend’s have become more frequent and intense, scientists warn.
By some estimates 2024, the hottest year in recorded history so far, saw worldwide disasters which cost more than $300 billion.

UK distances new spy chief from ‘Nazi’ grandfather

Updated 47 min 16 sec ago
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UK distances new spy chief from ‘Nazi’ grandfather

  • The Daily Mail newspaper reported this week that her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski defected from the Soviet Union’s Red Army to become a Nazi informant in the Chernigiv region of modern day Ukraine

LONDON: The British government has distanced the incoming head of its foreign intelligence service from her grandfather following reports he was a Nazi spy known as “the butcher.”
Blaise Metreweli will in the autumn become the first woman to lead MI6 in its 116-year-old history, the British government announced earlier this month.
The Daily Mail newspaper reported this week that her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski defected from the Soviet Union’s Red Army to become a Nazi informant in the Chernigiv region of modern-day Ukraine.
The newspaper said German archives showed Dobrowolski was known as “the Butcher” or “Agent No 30” by Wehrmacht commanders.
“Blaise Metreweli neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement.
“Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.
“It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”
The Daily Mail said Dobrowolski had a 50,000 ruble bounty placed on him by Soviet leaders, and was dubbed the “worst enemy of the Ukrainian people.”
He also sent letters to superiors saying he “personally” took part “in the extermination of the Jews,” the newspaper added.
The head of MI6 is the only publicly named member of the organization and reports directly to the foreign minister.
Metreweli, 47, will be the 18th head of MI6.
Like her predecessors she will be referred to as “C,” not “M” as the chief is called in the James Bond film franchise.


African Union says DR Congo-Rwanda deal ‘milestone’ toward peace

Updated 56 min 7 sec ago
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African Union says DR Congo-Rwanda deal ‘milestone’ toward peace

NAIROBI: The African Union said on Saturday a peace deal signed between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda was a “significant milestone” in bringing peace to the deeply troubled region.
For more than 30 years the eastern DRC has been riven by conflict, which has intensified in recent years with the advance of an armed militia backed by Rwanda.
A statement said AU Commission head Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who witnessed the signing of the deal in Washington on Friday, “welcomed this significant milestone and commended all efforts aimed at advancing peace, stability, & reconciliation in the region.”
It said he “appreciated the constructive & supportive role played by the US & the State of Qatar in facilitating dialogue & consensus that led to this development.”
The agreement comes after the M23, an ethnic Tutsi rebel force supported by Rwanda, sprinted across the mineral-rich east of the DRC this year, seizing vast territory including the key city of Goma.
The deal does not explicitly address the gains of the M23 in the area torn by decades of on-off war but calls for Rwanda to end “defensive measures” it has taken.
Rwanda has denied offering the M23 military support but has demanded an end to another armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by ethnic Hutus involved in the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The agreement calls for the “neutralization” of the FDLR.


13 soldiers killed in a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan: officials

Updated 9 min 37 sec ago
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13 soldiers killed in a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan: officials

  • The suicide attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded 29, including civilians

PESHAWAR: A suicide attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded 29, including civilians, in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, local government officials and police officers told AFP.
“A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a military convoy. The blast killed 13 soldiers, injured 10 army personnel and 19 civilians,” said a local government official in North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“The explosion also caused the roofs of two houses to collapse, injuring six children,” a police officer posted in the district told AFP.