The President of Belarus, Oleksandr Lukashenko, announced on Sunday that he will run in next year’s presidential elections. The announcement came on the day of parliamentary elections, which the exiled opposition described as fraudulent and anemic after years of crackdowns on the opposition, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Since his controversial re-election in 2020, the Belarusian leader has cracked down on unprecedented opposition protests, jailing hundreds of people and forcing thousands into exile.

“Tell everyone that I will run for office” in 2025, Oleksandr Lukashenko, who has ruled the country since 1994, said after the vote, according to the Telegram channel managed by his team.

No representative of the opposition could take part in the parliamentary elections on Sunday. Opposition leaders in exile called on the population to boycott the vote.

President Lukashenko also emphasized that the authorities have learned the lessons of 2020 and assured that there will be no “riots” on Sunday.

According to human rights groups, in January the Belarusian authorities again intensified raids against relatives of dissidents and political prisoners.

The non-governmental organization “Vyasna”, whose founder and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatskyi is serving a ten-year sentence, announced that there are 1,419 political prisoners in Belarus.

Opposition leader Svitlana Tikhanovskaya, whose husband is in prison, called Sunday’s vote a sham election: “Frankly, the regime’s attempt to use this sham election to legitimize itself is doomed to failure,” she said in an online video. .

The United States also condemned the “simulacrum of legislative elections”. “It is impossible to organize a free and fair vote in an atmosphere of fear and with more than 1,400 political prisoners,” said department spokesman Matthew on X State. Miller.

Belarus, a country under Western sanctions, is largely isolated on the international stage, but it is a key ally of Russia, to which it ceded territory in February 2022 to launch its invasion of Ukraine.

“We will always be with Russia,” insisted Oleksandr Lukashenko, who depends on political and economic support from the Kremlin.