TALLINN, Estonia (news agencies) — Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in Tuesday to a seventh term, and he mocked those who derided him as “Europe’s last dictator” by saying his country has more democracy “than those who cast themselves as its models.”
“Half of the world is dreaming about our ‘dictatorship,’ the dictatorship of real business and interests of our people,” Lukashenko, 70, said in his inauguration speech at the Independence Palace in the capital of Minsk.
Hundreds of opposition supporters living abroad held anti-Lukashenko rallies Tuesday to mark the anniversary of Belarus’ short-lived independence in 1918 following the collapse of the Russian Empire.
Lukashenko marked three decades in power last year, and his political opponents have denounced the tightly orchestrated Jan. 26 election as a farce. The Belarus Central Election Commission declared he won with nearly 87% of the vote after a campaign in which four token challengers on the ballot all praised his rule.
Opposition members have been imprisoned or exiled abroad by Lukashenko’s unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech.
Months of massive protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people followed the 2020 election and brought on the harsh crackdown. Over 65,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by police and independent media outlets and nongovernmental organizations were closed and outlawed, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.
Thousands of Lukashenko supporters attended Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony, where he denounced his critics as foreign stooges who were at odds with the people.
“You don’t and won’t have public support, you have no future,” he declared. “We have more democracy than those who cast themselves as its models.”
Belarusian activists say it holds more than 1,200 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center.
“The election was held amid a deep human rights crisis, in the atmosphere of total fear caused by repressions against civil society, independent media, opposition and dissent,” according to a statement released Tuesday by Viasna and 10 other Belarusian human rights groups. They said Lukashenko’s hold on power is illegitimate.
Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994, relying on subsidies and political support from Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself in office for a quarter-century, an alliance that helped the Belarusian leader survive the 2020 protests.
Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use the country’s territory to invade Ukraine in February 2022 and later hosted some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.
Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure after running against Lukashenko in 2020, vowed to keep fighting for the country’s freedom.
“Our goal is to break away from the Russian occupation and Lukashenko’s tyranny, and to return Belarus into the European family of nations,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a speech at the Lithuanian parliament,
Some observers say Lukashenko could now try to mend ties with the West.
“Lukashenko already has been sending signals to the West about his readiness to start a dialogue and his desire to normalize ties in order to ease the total dependence on the Kremlin and soften Western sanctions during his seventh term,” said Valery Karbalevich, an independent political analyst.
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