Belarus sets a Jan. 26 election that's almost certain to extend its authoritarian leader's rule

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Lawmakers in Belarus on Wednesday set the next presidential election for Jan. 26, a vote almost certain to extend the three-decade rule of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has suppressed all political dissent.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya swiftly denounced the upcoming balloting as a “farce.”

Lukashenko has already said he would seek what would be his seventh consecutive term, extending back to 1994, and confirmed it Wednesday in remarks to Russian state TV. His last victory came in a 2020 election denounced by the opposition and the West as fraudulent.

That prompted an unprecedented wave of mass protests, and his government responded with a violent crackdown, arresting and beating thousands. Opposition leaders have since been jailed or forced to flee the country.

Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020, urged Belarusians and the world not to recognize the upcoming election amid the continuing political crackdown.

“Lukashenko has set the date for his ‘reelection’ for Jan. 26, but it's a sham performance without a real electoral process that is taking place in the atmosphere of terror,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press in a statement. “We urge Belarusians and the international community to reject this farce.”

According to Viasna, Belarus’ oldest and most prominent human rights organization, there are about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus — including leaders of opposition parties and the group's founder Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

Lukashenko in recent months unexpectedly released 115 political prisoners, after the government said they applied for clemency and repented.

Analysts believe he is using the issue of political prisoners to seek Western recognition of the election result and to soften sanctions against his government.

Lukashenko's current term expires next summer, but election officials said advancing the process to the beginning of the year would allow the president “to exercise his powers at the initial stage of strategic planning.”

But Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich gave a different reason for scheduling a vote earlier in the year.

“There won't be mass protests in freezing January," he said.

Karbalevich said Lukashenko will use that fact and his recent release of political prisoners to begin bargaining with the West.

“Lukashenko's trauma of monthslong mass protests still hasn't healed, and it dictates the model of presidential elections in January with no discussions and no choice," he added.

Belarusian authorities have not said whether they would invite any international observers to monitor the vote.

Belarus refused to allow monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to observe this year’s parliamentary election for the first time in decades. Under the complete control of Lukashenko’s government, voting booths for the first time didn’t have privacy curtains, and voters were not allowed to take photographs of their ballots, which made it impossible to carry out any independent count.