Estonia will not recognize Belarus’ presidential elections or their results, Jonatan Vseviov, secretary general of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed to ERR News.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s five-year term ends in 2025 and he will seek reelection in January. No credible opposition candidate will participate, activists say.

A crackdown after the vote in 2020 shattered the opposition. Candidates who stood in 2020 are in jail or living in exile. Harassment of their supporters by the Belarusian state security services continues.  

The election was widely denounced as rigged. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sanctioned officials who allowed the use of force against peaceful protesters. 

Speaking to ERR News on Thursday, Vseviov denied elections would take place next year.

Jonatan Vseviov Source: ERR

“We do not foresee that elections will come up in January in Belarus. If the regime declares elections to have taken place, then we will obviously help others see through the charade that it is,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the Belarusian people live under a dictatorship,” the secretary general added.  

Vseviov’s comments echo those of Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsakhna (Eesti 200) in November.

“The presidential elections of Belarus planned for 2025 are organized in an atmosphere of terror and they will not meet the democratic principle,”  he said during a press conference with political activist and leader of the Belarusian democratic movement Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Tallinn.

“This is why we will not be able to recognize the results of the elections,” he stated.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya met with Estonain Minister of Foregin Affairs Margus Tsahkna in Tallinn on Tuesday. Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Estonia recognizes Tsikhanouskaya’s leadership, the minister said, adding that over 1,000 political prisoners are currently in jail in Belarus.

A joint statement by the democratic forces of Belarus issued in October said the “so-called elections” would be a “sham.”

Tsikhanouskaya has called for Belarusians to ready to take to the streets to overthrow Lukashenko.

After this article was published, she said she was “grateful” to Estonia for its support. Writing on social media: “For standing with Belarusians and calling the regime’s so-called ‘elections’ what they truly are: a charade.”

Activist: Lukashenko is weaker than in 2020

Belarusian political emigrant living in Estonia Andrei Abozau said many things have changed over the last five years. Lukashenko is being “forced to make many steps for the first time” and this shows he is weaker now.

For example, for the first time during Lukashenko’s 20-year tenure, that no other candidate will stand. In the past they could run but would likely be jailed before or after the vote.

“In 2025, he feels so weak that there will be no alternative candidates at all. There will be a few spoiler candidates who are already publicly apologizing to citizens for going to the polls and urging them to vote for Lukashenko. There is no point in even listing their names. The elections have finally turned into an imitation,” Abozau told ERR News.

He has also chosen to call the elections six months early to try and keep control of the situation.

Belarusians in Estonia gathered in Tallinn on March 25, 2023 to mark Freedom Day. Source: Priit Mürk/ERR

“Winter and the frostiest period were specially chosen. Lukashenko is very afraid of a repeat of the large protests of 2020. Also this winter it can be guaranteed that all other geopolitical players are seriously distracted by the events in Ukraine and no one will interfere with him,” Abozau believes.

Lukashenko has banned voting from abroad at embassies outside of Belarus – another first. This is to limit the participation of the diaspora which loathes the president.

He said people in Belarus are consciously ignoring the elections or simply not interested in them. While people are encouraged to vote the result will not be genuine anyway: “They just announce the result, sent down from above, and the ballot papers are destroyed as soon as possible after the elections.”

There is also no use in protest voting, Abozau said.

The activist says the mood in Belarus – which is supporting Russia’s full-scale of Ukraine – is one of “fear and hatred” towards the regime: “People have not forgotten that in 2020 the elections were stolen from them. They have not forgotten the brutality, repressions and prisons. A lot of people are angry.”

—

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!