Polls are under way in Belarus for a presidential election, with longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko expected to extend his more than three decades in power in the absence of any real opposition.
Voters began casting their ballots at 8am local time (05:00 GMT) on Sunday in the country’s first presidential vote since Lukashenko crushed mass protests against his government in 2020 and permitted Russia to use Belarusian territory for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The 70-year-old former collective farm boss has been in power in Belarus since 1994 and is seeking a seventh term.
The country’s last presidential election in 2020 ended with nationwide protests, unprecedented in the history of the country of nine million people. The opposition and Western nations accused Lukashenko of rigging the election and imposed sanctions.
In response, his government launched a sweeping crackdown, leaving more than 1,000 people imprisoned, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Centre.
