©Reuters. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Russia-Belarus Union in St. Petersburg, Russia, January 29, 2024. Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS/file Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he will run for president again in 2025, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported on Sunday.
Lukashenko made the comment after voting in parliamentary and local elections, which the United States denounced as a farce. The former Soviet state’s top election official rejected the criticism and told Washington to mind its own business.
BelTA said Lukashenko, in power since 1994, told reporters: “Tell them (the opposition in exile) that I will run. No one, no responsible president would abandon his people who followed him into battle.”
Lukashenko, 69, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and allowed the Kremlin to use his country’s territory to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“We are still a year away from the presidential elections. A lot of things can change,” he said in response to a follow-up question, BelTA reported.
“Naturally I and all of us, society, will react to the changes that will take place in our society and to the situation when we approach the elections in a year,” Lukashenko said.
The US State Department has condemned what it called “sham” elections in Belarus on Sunday.
“The election took place in a climate of fear in which no electoral process can be characterized as democratic,” department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The chairman of the Central Election Commission of Belarus, in comments cited by BelTA, said it was not up to the United States to comment on the election.
“We don’t denounce their elections. We don’t make statements, even though they had many questions over there for everyone to see, even during the last presidential elections,” Igor Karpenko said.
“They work on the principle that we are bigger and therefore we can tell everyone what to do. I think we will be quite successful in conducting elections in our country,” Karpenko said.
Election commission officials said turnout was just under 73% by mid-evening.
Lukashenko’s re-election to a sixth term in 2020 sparked unprecedented protests by opponents alleging mass voter fraud. Putin offered support to Lukashenko and the demonstrations died down after mass roundups and detentions of protesters by police.
Lukashenko told reporters that the role of parliament will be strengthened in his country.
“People are starting to understand that in Belarus, for example, a president is not a tsar or a god. It’s a very hard job,” BelTA said. “Parliament’s role will be expanded, every month, every year.”