Belarus set to hold next presidential election on 26 January

Belarus will hold its next presidential election on 26 January, the country’s state-owned news agency BELTA reported on Wednesday.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced in February that he would run for a seventh term in office next year, which could extend his grip on power in the country to 36 years.

Since coming to power in 1994, Lukashenko has eliminated practically all forms of opposition in the country.

Belarus’ lower house of parliament approved the date of the vote, the first since the presidential election of 2020, which sparked mass protests against Lukashenko, who is believed by the international community to have rigged the result in his favour.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko’s challenger in the 2020 election, dismissed the upcoming election as a “sham with no real electoral process, conducted in an atmosphere of terror”, in a post on X on Wednesday. Tsikhanouskaya claimed victory in 2020 but was forced to flee the country and now operates from exile.

In August, Lukashenko advised Belarusian citizens to “get used to” the fact that their country would eventually have a new president, but said he was not planning to “abandon” them any time soon.

“Anything can happen in life. You must get used to the fact that I am not eternal, just like all of you,” said Lukashenko.