Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has taken the oath of office for a seventh term and ridiculed those who call him “Europe's last dictator”, claiming his country has more democracy “than those who consider themselves its model”.
“Half the world is thirsty for our 'dictatorship', a dictatorship of real business and the interests of our people,” Lukashenko, 70, said in his inauguration speech at the Palace of Independence in Minsk.
Hundreds of opposition supporters abroad held protest rallies against Lukashenko on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of Belarus's brief independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian empire.
Last year, Lukashenko marked 30 years in power, and his political opponents condemned the January 26 elections as a farce.
Belarus's Central Election Commission confirmed his victory with nearly 87% of the vote after a campaign in which all four nominal presidential candidates backed him.
Opposition activists have been jailed or exiled abroad as part of Lukashenko's ruthless crackdown on dissent and free speech.
The 2020 elections were followed by months of mass protests, unprecedented in the country of nine million, leading to a brutal crackdown.
More than 65,000 people have been arrested, thousands have been subjected to police violence, and independent media and NGOs have been shut down and outlawed, drawing condemnation and sanctions from the West.
Thousands of Lukashenko's supporters attended Tuesday's inauguration, where he denounced his critics as foreign puppets out of touch with the people.
“You do not have and will not have public support, you have no future,” he said. “We have more democracy than those who present themselves as its standard.”
Belarusian activists claim that there are more than 1,200 political prisoners in the country, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the human rights center Viasna.
“The elections took place against the backdrop of a deep human rights crisis, in an atmosphere of total fear caused by repression against civil society, independent media, the opposition and dissent,” said a statement released on Tuesday by the Viasna center and 10 other Belarusian human rights organizations.
They declared that Lukashenko's power is illegitimate.
Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994, relying on subsidies and political support from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has himself been in power for a quarter of a century. That alliance has allowed the Belarusian leader to survive the 2020 protests.
Lukashenko
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
