MINSK (Reuters) -Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was on track to extend his 31-year rule with 87.6% of the vote in a presidential election on Sunday, according to an exit poll broadcast on state TV, after hurling defiance at the West and defending the jailing of dissidents.
The close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has led Belarus since 1994. The U.S. and European Union both said in the run-up to the election that it would be a sham because independent media are banned in Belarus and all leading opposition figures have been sent to penal colonies or forced to flee abroad.
Challenged over the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko told journalists that they were the authors of their own fate.
“Some chose prison, some chose ‘exile’, as you say. We didn’t kick anyone out of the country” he told a marathon press conference lasting more than four hours and 20 minutes.
He said no one was prevented from speaking out in Belarus, but prison was “for people who opened their mouths too wide, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law”.
The exit poll was broadcast by state TV soon after voting closed. Officials said turnout was 81.5% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on the eve of the vote that it was a “blatant affront to democracy”.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters this week that Lukashenko was engineering his re-election as part of a “ritual for dictators”. Demonstrations against him took place on Sunday in Warsaw and other east European cities.
Lukashenko shrugged off the criticism as meaningless and said he didn’t care whether the West decided to recognise the election or not.
‘DON’T GIVE A DAMN’
The EU and the US both said they did not acknowledge him as the legitimate leader of Belarus after he used his security forces to crush mass protests after the last election in 2020, when Western governments backed Tsikhanouskaya’s claim that he had rigged the count and cheated her of victory.
Tens of thousands of people were arrested in protests against the official result, which gave him just over 80% of the vote. Human rights group Viasna, which is banned as an “extremist” organisation, says there are still some 1,250 political prisoners.
Lukashenko has freed more than 250 in the past year on what he called humanitarian grounds, but he denied this was meant as a signal to the West to try to repair relations.
“I don’t give a damn about the West,” he said, adding that Belarus was willing to talk to the EU but not to “bow before you or crawl on our knees”.
He said that leading dissident Maria Kalesnikava was guilty of “violating the regime” but that she was in sound health and that he had intervened personally to allow her a visit from her father last year. Other prominent prisoners include human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, serving a 10-year sentence on smuggling charges that he denies.
“In any state you have to take responsibility if you break the law. The law is severe, but it’s the law,” Lukashenko said.
PUTIN ALLY
Lukashenko, who took his small dog with him to cast his vote at a polling station in the capital, faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot paper. He said during the campaign that he was too busy to keep track of it.
But while the outcome was never in doubt, he faces difficult choices in his next term as he navigates relations with Russia and the West – the constant theme of his long rule – against the background of possible talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The war has bound him more tightly than ever to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with Lukashenko offering his country as a launchpad for the 2022 invasion and later agreeing to let Moscow place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
If it ends, political analysts say he is likely to seek to restore his legitimacy with the West in order to ease his isolation and seek the lifting of sanctions.
Lukashenko said he saw “light at the end of the tunnel” in the war, as Moscow and Kyiv prepare for possible talks in which he said they would have to thrash out a compromise.
Asked if this would be his last election, the 70-year-old ex-Soviet farm boss declined to give a direct answer. He said he was “not about to die”, and had no specific successor in mind.
“When the time comes, we will think about this,” he said.
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