By Mark Trevelyan
(Reuters) -Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham.
Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results.
European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media are banned in the former Soviet republic and all leading opposition figures have either been jailed or forced to flee abroad.
“The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for all those who long for freedom & democracy,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called for an expansion of Western sanctions against Belarusian companies and individuals involved in repressing opponents of Lukashenko and supplying munitions for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
“As long as Belarus is under Lukashenko and Putin’s control, there will be a constant threat to the peace and security of the entire region,” she said.
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said in a statement the bloc would keep imposing “restrictive and targeted measures against the regime” while supporting civic society and the exiled opposition.
‘DON’T GIVE A DAMN’
Asked about the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko said on Sunday that they had “chosen” their own fate. He denied that his decision to release more than 250 people convicted of “extremist” activity was a message to the West in order to seek an easing of his isolation.
“I don’t give a damn about the West,” he told a rambling news conference that lasted well over four hours.
“We have never refused relations with the West. We have always been ready. But you do not want this. So what should we do, bow before you or crawl on our knees?”
Throughout his career, Lukashenko has managed to make himself a useful ally to Russia and extract vital gains in the form of cheap oil and loans, while preventing his country of nine million people from being swallowed up by its much larger neighbour.
But the war in Ukraine has tied him more closely than ever to Putin, whose invasion was launched in part from Belarusian territory. Putin has also deployed Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Despite Lukashenko’s denial, opponents and political analysts interpret his prisoner pardons as a move to start repairing ties with the West, and his latest re-election as a bid to restore his legitimacy and get major European countries and the U.S. to return their ambassadors to Minsk for the first time in years.
Human rights group Viasna, which is banned as an “extremist” organisation in Belarus, says there are still about 1,250 political prisoners in the country.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Belarus had “just unilaterally released an innocent American”, whom he named as Anastassia Nuhfer. He gave no further details about the case, which had not previously been made public.
(Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn in London; additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Filipp Lebedev in LondonEditing by Gareth Jones)
