By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MINSK/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Europe’s longest-serving leader, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, clinched his seventh straight election victory on Sunday and ordered the release of an American woman who had been held in the autocratically-ruled nation.
Critics said Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator,” was declared the winner after a race they dismissed as “a sham” to tighten his iron grip on the ex-Soviet republic, Russia’s closest ally.
“Don’t use the word election to describe this farce,” said Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an opposition leader who fled Belarus after the country’s previous presidential election in 2020 and a brutal crackdown on nationwide protests over vote-rigging. “It’s a staged show by Lukashenko to cling to power at all costs.”
The Central Election Commission declared that the strongman leader won by a landslide, garnering nearly 87.6 percent of the vote, higher than the 81 percent he was declared to have won in 2020. Like all aspects of elections in Belarus, Exit polls are controlled by the state and generally reflect the final outcome, observers said.
But his opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, would disagree.
They recall that the perceived fraudulent election in 2020 triggered months of the largest protests in the recorded history of the country of 9 million people.
The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, rights groups said, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.
IRON-FIST
His iron-fisted rule since 1994 – Lukashenko took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union – earned him the nickname of
“Europe’s last dictator,” relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia.
Unlike in 2020, when Tikhanovskaya was allowed to run against Lukashenko and declared herself the winner, Sunday’s election was a tightly controlled and tame affair, with only candidates loyal to the president running. No one indicated they wanted to defeat the 70-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994.
His victory came while Belarus “unilaterally” released American woman Anastassia Nuhfer from detention, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
It was not specified when or why the woman, who was arrested under former President Joe Biden, was released. She was detained during former President Joe Biden’s term, but when or why was not specified. Thousands of Lukashenko’s opponents have been arrested in recent years.
The West has condemned Belarus over its perceived poor record on human rights and for allowing Russian forces to launch part of Russia’s offensive against Ukraine from its territory.
Asked last year whether he would be prepared to allow his country again to be used as a staging ground for Russia’s ongoing invasion, he answered: “Yes, I’m ready. I’m ready to provide [territory] again. I’m also ready to wage war alongside the Russians from the territory of Belarus. But only if someone – even a single soldier – enters our territory from there (Ukraine) with weapons to kill my people.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Residents on Luzon Island, the largest and most populated island of the Philippines, assessed the damage early Monday after a sleepless night when Super Typhoon Fung-wong, locally known as Uwan, killed at least two people and injured several others.
More than 50 prominent Christian leaders are calling on President Trump to directly confront Syria’s new president about the ongoing persecution of religious minorities when the two leaders meet Monday at the White House, marking a historic first for U.S.-Syria relations.
In a decisive break from Democratic obstruction that has paralyzed the federal government for over a month, the U.S. Senate on Sunday night voted 60-40 to advance legislation ending the record-breaking 40-day government shutdown, marking a significant victory for Republican fiscal discipline and President Donald Trump’s healthcare reform agenda.
A group of Hamas fighters trapped inside tunnels on the Israeli-controlled side of the Rafah ceasefire line have vowed not to surrender to Israeli forces, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced Sunday, in a move that could jeopardize the fragile month-old ceasefire in Gaza.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an extraordinary 2,700-year-old pottery fragment inscribed with Assyrian cuneiform near the Temple Mount — the first written evidence of direct contact between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah ever discovered in the city. The find, announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), offers striking confirmation of the biblical narrative of King Hezekiah’s resistance to Assyrian domination recorded in II Kings 18.
Iranian officials are warning of imminent water rationing—and even the potential evacuation of Tehran—as the nation faces its worst drought in nearly a century.
A Christian widow in Pakistan’s Punjab province is devastated after her married daughter went missing, while elsewhere in the region, a mother of four and a mother of six have also disappeared following alleged abductions by Muslim men, Worthy News learned Saturday.