Lukashenka prolongs rule in Belarus; EU considers suspending sanctions

Election officials in Belarus say authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, in power since 1994, has won a new five-year term with more than 83 percent of the votes cast in an election dismissed by opponents as a farce.

Meanwhile, Germany's foreign minister said he and colleagues from other European Union countries would discuss "the conditions and time frame" for easing sanctions against Belarus, which pleased the West by releasing several foes of Lukashenka from prison ahead of the election.

Citing preliminary results, the former Soviet republic's Central Election Commission (TsVK) said on October 12 that Lukashenka, 61, had received just under 83.5 percent of the votes cast in the October 11 election.

It said that Tatsyana Karatkevich, a relatively obscure candidate representing the opposition movement Havary Pravdu (Tell the Truth), came in second with 4.42 percent.

The other two candidates, both from pro-government parties, received fewer votes. They congratulated Lukashenka before any official results were announced.

Around 6.5 percent voted against all four candidates on the ballot, according to the TsVK, which said turnout was 86.7 percent. Many polling stations were decked out with tables filled with snacks and alcohol, echoing a Soviet-era tradition of election-day festivities.

The result was apparently in line with the expectations of Lukashenka, who has muzzled the media and systematically clamped down on dissent since his first election in 1994.

He said on October 11 that it would be a bad sign if he received less of the vote than in the last election, in 2010, when he officially won 79.65 percent of the vote in a ballot that spawned opposition protests that were violently suppressed by the authorities.

This year, hundreds of opposition supporters staged an unsanctioned protest rally in the capital, Minsk, on October 10, urging Belarusians not to vote.

Speaking at the rally on the central Freedom Square, opposition leaders Mikalay Statkevich and Uladzimer Nyaklyaeu denounced the election, saying its result has already been fixed.

After the polls closed, some 200 activists demonstrated in central Minsk, carrying banners decrying Lukashenka's "dictatorship."

There was no sign of the kind of violent police crackdown on protesters that followed the 2010 reelection of Lukashenka, a wily politician whose iron-fisted longevity in office has earned him the moniker "Europe's last dictator."

The TsVK said on October 10 that 36 percent of the 7 million registered voters had cast their ballots ahead of election day. Opposition representatives say pressure had been put on civil servants, hospital patients, and students to vote early.

"It is very unusual for us to find that a country has an election so many days," James Walsh, who heads the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told The Associated Press. "Most democracies have a challenge in getting...citizens...to come out and vote."

Walsh said the observers had questions about the security of ballot boxes, a concern raised by the opposition as well.

OSCE observer mission Chairman Kent Hasted said on October 12 that the election fell short of democratic standards.

"It is clear that Belarus still has a long way to go towards fulfilling its democratic commitments," he said.

Hasted added that despite some positive trends during the election campaign this year, Belarusian authorities created "an uneven playing field for campaigning" where the line between Lukashenka's candidacy and the interests of the state was blurred.

He expressed particular disappointment over shortcomings during the counting and tabulation of votes.

Aleh Hulak, chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Group, told reporters in Minsk on October 12 that although there were some positive changes in the election campaign in comparison with previous years, there were problems and violations during the poll.

Hulak said that the vote-counting process was not transparent, as only a quarter of independent observers were able to fully attend the counting process.

Valyantsin Stefanovich, deputy chairman of Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) Human Rights Center, told journalists that the candidates did not have equal opportunities for election campaigning in terms of their presence in electronic media.

"The result is preordained," says Kenneth Yalowitz, whose three-year tenure as U.S. ambassador to Belarus began in 1994, just after Lukashenka first became president.

"I always caution people, the election itself may look to be free, fair, and open but everything that has preceded it has not. You can't just look at what happens on election day," he said.

Aside from 1994, Lukashenka has never received less than 75 percent of the vote in a presidential election. He has prolonged his power in elections that opponents and international observers describe as marred by violations and skewed by the influence Lukashenka holds on state institutions and uneven coverage in the state media.

Lukashenka, who cast his ballot together with his 11-year-old son Kolya, warned opposition leaders not to violate the law.

"We won't allow anyone to destabilize the situation," state-run news agency Belta quoted him as saying.

The lack of violence on election day raised expectation that the EU will suspend sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes that it has imposed after undemocratic past elections, the jailing of opponents, and other oppressive moves by Lukashenka's government. The United States has also imposed sanctions.

Speaking to journalists in Berlin on October 12, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that "depending on the assessment we receive" from the OSCE's vote-monitoring arm, "we will talk today about the conditions and the time frame for modifying or lifting the sanctions that were imposed on Belarus."

The EU slapped sanctions on 201 individuals and 18 companies in Belarus over repressions that followed the 2010 vote, including the jailing of Statkevich and other opposition candidates.

Statkevich and other opposition figures were released from prison in late August, part of a series of measures widely seen as an effort by Lukashenka to improve ties with the West at a time of tension in his relationship with Russia.

Russia and Belarus have close ties and are partners in the Eurasian Economic Union, a grouping that links ex-Soviet states and is seen as a rival of the EU, but they have often sparred over economic issues and their relationship has been strained by Russia's interference in Ukraine, which has made Minsk wary and bolstered Lukashenka's efforts to mend fences with the West.

Lukashenka has put himself forward as an important interlocutor with the West since Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its backing of the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

He has hosted peace talks in the capital, Minsk, but he has rebuffed Moscow's pressure to recognize the annexation.

"It's going to be difficult to continue this kind of maneuvering. There are many pressure points that the Russians have over him, mainly economically. He's clearly concerned that Ukraine will be a precedent," Yalowitz said.

"The election will be important because he'll be able to point to his victory as an endorsement of his policies. He'll get 80-90 percent of the vote, but the real question is what he will do with this new quote-unquote mandate," he said.

In a preliminary report released last month, OSCE monitors, a transatlantic intergovernmental agency, noted several problems with the election campaign, including the lack of independent media coverage

Most observers, including Yalowitz, believe Lukashenka has genuine popularity, particularly in the country's conservative rural areas, and probably could win a truly competitive election.

After his release from prison, Statkevich, who many view as Lukashenka's biggest political threat, told the opposition website Charter 97 that Lukashenka had "run out of money" and would seek financial help from both Russia and the International Monetary Fund.

Statkevich, who led an unsanctioned rally in central Minsk against the proposal for the Russian air base, said most Belarusians view Lukashenka's government has something unchanging, which makes it hard to galvanize mass support for an alternative.

"For ordinary people, the government is like the weather. You can be lucky, or unlucky. They see it as something objective, something you can't change," Statkevich told RFE/RL in an interview ahead of the vote.

The European Union had signaled it would suspend sanctions on close to 140 Belarusians, including Lukashenka himself, if there was no political crackdown during the election.